NEW  YORK 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER 


OUT. -DOORS 


IDLEWILD  ; 


ing  nf  u  ITO  nn  tip  95anks  rf  tjp  l 


N.    P.    WILLIS. 

\\ 


"  AT  King  Kemserai's  caravanserai  I  dismounted  from  my  camel ;  and  here 
travellers  were  entertained,  on  condition  of  tolling  their  adventures." 

EASTERN  STORY-BOOK. 


NEW     YORK: 
CHARLES   SCRTBXER,  145  NASSAU   STREET. 

1855. 


ENTERED,  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1S54,  by 
CHARLES    SCRIBNER, 

In  the  Clerk's  Office  for  the  District  Court  of  the  Southern  District  of 
New  York. 


W.  H.  TINSON, 

i  T  E   R  E   O  T  Y  P  E   R  ,  ROOX    ANP  JOT,  T'RTNTMIS  7:Y  '• 

23  Beekman  St.,  N.  Y.  -6  Boeliinan  nn,i  IS  ;  rTm- 


VV      /   — ' 


HON.     JOSEPH     QRINNELL 

THESE  OUT-DOOU  SKETCHES  OF  THE  HOME 

TO  WHOSE  TX-DOOR  HAPPINESS  HIS  KIXI)  AFFECTION  IS  ONE  OF  THE 
CONSTANT  BLESSINGS, 


BY   HIS   SON-IN-LAW, 

N.  P.   WILLIS. 


Jdleuild,  October,  1S54. 


294025 


THE  following  volume  is  a  simple  weaving  into  language  of  the 
every-day  circumstances  of  an  invalid  retirement  in  the  Highlands 
of  the  Hudson.  It  was  written  in  Letters  to  the  Home  Journal, 
and  it  was  expected  by  the  author,  that  they  would  owe  their 
interest  to  being  plainly  truthful,  and  to  picturing  exactly  the 
life  that  formed  itself  around  the  new-comer  to  one  particular 
portion  of  our  country — its  climate,  its  conveniences,  its  accessi 
bilities,  and  its  moral  and  social  atmosphere.  As  it  is  a  neighbor 
hood  to  which  the  sick  are  often  sent  by  the  physicians  of  New 
York,  for  the  nearest  mountain  air,  which  is  completely  separated 
from  the  sea-board,  the  author  has  thought  it  might  add  a  utility 
to  his  book  to  give  his  invalid  experience  with  the  rest.  In  this 
feature  of  it  he  has  aimed  to  serve  his  fellow  sufferers  rather  than 
to  please  the  general  reader. 

In  contributing  these  sketches  to  a  periodical,  and  contenting 
himself  with  no  other  formation  of  thoughts  and  events  into  a 
work,  than  the  mere  putting  of  the  loose  sketches  together,  the 
author  has  committed  another  of  the  offences  for  which  he  has 
been  called  to  account  by  every  genial  and  kind  critic,  as  well  as 


Vi  PREFACE. 

abused  by  every  malicious  and  carping  one.  As  this  may  be  his 
last  work,  and  it  is  time,  perhaps,  to  say,  what  he  has  always  felt, 
but  neglected  to  say,  deprecatorily,  upon  this  point,  he  will 
venture  to  quote  the  most  recent  of  these  fault-finding  passages 
of  criticism,  with  a  word  of  reply  to  it.  Thus  says  the  New  York 
Quarterly  Review  (of  July,  1854),  in  a  most  liberal  and  friendly 
criticism,  written,  the  author  understands,  by  a  clergyman  who  is 
a  stranger  to  him  : — 

"  Mr.  Willis  is  perhaps  most  distinguished  as  a  writer  of  light, 
brilliant  and  dashing  sketches,  contributed  to  the  magazines. 
His  collected  papers  of  this  kind  amount  to  three  thick  volumes. 
Notwithstanding  their  apparent  absence  of  hard  work,  they  have 
no  doubt  been  carefully  eliminated.  In  style  ihey  are  original, 
artistic,  and  follow  no  previous  model.  :  !  He  has  that  one 
merit — that  his  style  is  his  own.  There  are  elements  in  all  his 
sketches,  which,  if  combined  in  one  well-compacted  design,  might 
make  a  sparkling  novel,  and  Mr.  Willis  would  better  have  con 
sulted  his  own  fame  had  he  seized  upon  the  retirement  of  five 
years  afforded  him.  at  Glenmary,  to  have  wrought  out  some  works 
of  more  enduring  character,  where  that  which  seems  light  and 
flippant,  when  we  have  too  much  of  it,  and  liable,  like  loose  leaves, 
to  be  blown  away,  might  have  been  securely  bound  up  in  some 
design  much  safer  than  board  covers.  The  mere  collection  and 
collocution  of  papers  which  have  served  the  purposes  of  ephemeral 
magazines,  into  books  and  volumes,  may  enhance  their  chance  for 
time — but  not  for  eternity.  There  is  an  opportunity  for  Mr.  Willis 
to  do  at  Idlewild  what  he  has  neglected  to  accomplish  at  Glen 
mary.  He  has  seen  enough  of  the  world  to  afford  him  ample 
material ;  let  him  combine  the  qualities  which  sparkle  along  his 
works  so  that  they  may  flash  in  one  setting.  This  is  good  advice  ; 


PREFACE.  Vl 

but  it  is  to  be  observed  that  those  who  bind  themselves  down  to 
the  craving  demands  of  the  periodical  press,  soon  jog  along  like 
patient  horses  in  the  traces,  and  forego  the  ambition  and  aspira 
tion  of  authors.  *  *  It  would  be  better  to  run  some  of  the 
Home  Journal  metal  into  bullet-moulds,  clip  over  an  aspiring 
gray  eagle  as  it  is  trespassing  upon  his  air-territory  over  the 
bounds  of  Idlewild,  pluck  a  feather,  nib  it  to  a  sharp  point,  and 
go  to  work  at  that  novel  in  two  volumes,"  &c.,  &c. 

Kind  as  this  is,  the  author  feels  that  it  implies,  as  do  other 
criticisms,  a  misconception  of  both  the  aim  and  the  impulse  with 
which  he  has  labored  in  his  profession.  It  is  a  refusal  to  him  of 
what  he  has  never  sought  nor  claimed  in  his  prose  writings — 
what,  if  he  knows  himself,  he  has  never  sufficiently  wished,  to  give 
turn  or  color  to  a  sentence.  He  could  not  but  value  "  fame,"  if 
it  should  be  thus  won,  inasmuch  as  it  might  give  pleasure  to  his 
children ;  but,  TO  LIVE,  as  variedly,  as  amply,  and  as  worthily, 
as  is  possible  to  his  human  faculties,  while  upon  this  planet,  has 
been  his  aim  ;  and  not  to  be  remembered  after  he  shall  have  left 
it.  Literature — periodical  literature— offered  him  the  readiest 
means  for  this — the  least  confining  mode  of  subsistence,  the  freest 
access  to  contemporary  mind  and  society,  the  most  influence  and 
power,  the  best  habits  of  mental  exercise  and  enlargement.  He 
chose,  it,  therefore,  as  a  profession.  In  it,  as  an  editor,  he  found 
a  power— over  and  above  all  power  of  serving  himself— and  upon 
this  alone,  aside  from  the  objects  just  named,. he  has  endeavored 
to  keep  a  fixed  purpose,  suitable  to  the  trust  with  which,  in  that 
power,  he  was  charged.  The  reviewer  above  quoted,  has,  in  one 
chance  remark,  borne  testimony  to  his  discharge  of  this  trust- 
therein  giving  him,  he  must  freely  own,  a  certain  "  fame  "  which 
he  hopes  will  belong  to  his  writings  while  they  live.  He  says  :— 


Vlll  PREFACE. 

"  Mr.  Willis  has  usually  minded  his  own  business,  and  gone 

straight  ahead  in  his  literary  career,  without  any  apparent  regard 

either  of  praise  or  blame,  of  appreciation,  or  neglect,  or  dislike  ; 

'    and  he  has  already,  by  words  in  season,  built  up  the 

reputation  of  a  score  of  people  as  securely,  at  least,  as  his  own.3' 

That  the  author  has  had  no  eye  to  "immortality,-'  but  has 
labored  honestly  and  industriously  for  the  wants  of  himself  and1 
those  dear  to  him,  and  has  served  others  whenever  it  was  in  his 
power,  with  what  means  and  opportunities  chance  threw  into  his 
hands — if  this,  which  he  finds  thus  incidentally  testified  to  by  a 
stranger,  be  true,  he  has  certainly  achieved  all  his  purpose  in 
literature,  and  would  be  abundantly  content  with  that,  for  all  his 
fame. 

Idlewild,  October,  1854. 


(Cnttbttts, 


LETTER  I. 
The  Highland  Terrace 17 

LETTER  II. 
Highland  Terrace,  Continued 20 

LETTER   III. 

Lessening  the  Brook— Pig-Prophecy— Nearing  of  the  City  with  Spring— the 
City  Eye,  as  felt  in  the  Country— Telegraph  Wires,  .ffiolian.  ...  30 

LETTER  IV. 

Slight  of  Small  Streams  in  the  Landscape— Character  of  Idlewild  Brook— Legend 
and  Name  of  our  Nearest  Village 36 

LETTER  V. 

Reasons  for  Neighbors  moving  Off— Morals  of  Steamboat  Landings— Class  that 
is  gradually  taking  Possession  of  the  Hudson— Thought-property  in  a  Resi 
dence— Horizon-clock  of  Idlewild— Society  for  the  Eye,  in  a  View.  .  .  45 

LETTER  VI. 

Evergreen  Independence  of  Seasons — Nature's  Landscape  Gardening — "Weak 
ness  as  to  Reluctance  in  Planting  Trees 51 

LETTER  VII. 

Earlier  City  Migration  to  the  Country  than  usual— Peculiar  Dignity-plant— Object 
of  Country  Farmers  in  taking  City  Boarders  for  the  Summer— Suggestion  as  to 
City  and  Country  Exchange  of  Hospitality 57 

1* 


X  CONTENTS . 

LETTER  VIII. 

Ownership  In  Nature  worth  Realizing— Thumb-and-finger  Nationality  of  Yan 
kees—United  Experience  of  Many,  as  expressed  in  a  Common-minded  Man's 
Better  Knowledge— Lack  of  Expression  and  Variety  in  Gates— Pig-tight 
Gates 62 

LETTER  IX. 

Private  Performance  of  Thunder-storms— Nature's  Sundays— Marriage  of  Two 
Brooks— Funnychild's  Deserted  Bed. 67 

LETTER   X. 

Making  a  Shelf-road— Character  shown  in  Wall-laying— By-the-Day  and  By- 
the-Job — English  Literalness  and  Yankee  "  Gumption."  ...  72 

LETTER   XI. 

Plank  Foot-bridge  over  the  Ravine— Its  Hidden  Location— Value  of  Old-man 
Friendships— Friend  S.— His  Visit  to  the  Bridge— His  Remembrance  of  Wash 
ington—Tobacco  Juice  on  Trees  to  Prevent  Horse-biting,  &c.,  &c.  .  .  73 

LETTER   XII. 

Foliage  and  its  Wonders— Caprice  of  Tree-living— Auto-verdure  of  Posts- 
Hemlock,  the  Homestead  Emblem,  &c.,  &c 84 

LETTER   XIII. 

Noon  Visitors  to  Scenery— The  Bull-Frog  at  the  Gate— Inconvenient  Opening 
of  a  Spring— Frog  Curiosity  and  Intelligence— Process  of  Animal  Progres 
sion,  &c.,  &c 8S 

LETTER  XIV. 

Canterbury  Rowdies— Pianos  and  Porkers— Unwelcome  Visitors— Penalty  of 
Pounding— A  Public  Benefactor 95 

LETTER  XV. 

Trouble  in  Gate  Designing — Letter  from  an  Unknown  Correspondent,  on  Gates 
—Invisible  Society  at  Idlewild— Correction  of  Error  as  to  Hemlocks— Hand 
some  Irishman's  Mistake  in  Felling  Trees,  &c 99 

LETTER   XVI. 

Laurel-blossoming— The  Imbedded  Stone,  and  Jem's  Neglect  of  his  Country 
man's  honors— Sabbath  stop  to  our  Running  Water,  &c.,  &c.  .  .  107 

LETTERXVII. 

Effect  of  clearing  out  Underbrush  from  a  Wood— Praise  Disclaimed— Horror 
of  Bloomeri-ized  Evergreens— Neglect  of  departed  Great  Men— Carrion  Nui 
sance,  &c.,  &c 112 

LETTER   XVIII. 
Summer    of    Even    Weather— Lightning-rods    falling   into    Disuse—Filling    of 


CONTENTS.  Xl 

Country  Boarding-houses — Luxury  of  Rural  Remoteness — Viewless  Peopling 
of  a  Spot — Wallace  the  Composer,  and  his  Tribute  to  Alexander  Smith, 
&c.,&c 118 

LETTER   XIX. 

Neglect  of  Personal  Appearance  in  Country  Seclusion — Unexploring  Habits  of 
City  People — Dignity  of  Un-damage-able  Dress — Thoughts  on  Cooper's  Man 
sion  being  turned  into  a  Boarding-house — Suggestion  to  Authors,  as  to 
turning  their  Influence  to  better  Account — Letter  from  Cooperstown, 
&c.,&c 123 

LETTER   XX. 

Timely  Seasons  and  Untimely  Age  in  America— Wild  Glen  so  near  the  Hud 
son — Finding  of  Water  Lilies — Anchoring  a  Lily  in  a  Brook — Name  of 
Moodna,  &c.,  &c 133 

LETTER  XXI. 

Avalanche  or  Storm-King— Idlewild  Ravaged  by  the  Flood — Accidents  to  Per 
sons  and  Destruction  to  Property— House  Laid  Open— Rareness  of  such  Phe 
nomena,  Ac.,  &c 137 

LETTER  XXII. 

Gentleman  towing  a  Cow — Daughter  taken  out  in  the  Storm  to  see  the 
Freshet— The  Power  of  a  Flood— Lofty  Bridge  Swept  Away— Extent  of  Deso 
lation,  &c.,  &c 145 

LETTER   XXIII. 

Young  Lady  killed  by  Lightning  at  our  Neighbor's  House— Another  Paralyzed- 
Careless  General  Attention  to  such  Fearful  Events,  &c.,  &c.  .  .  149 

LETTER   XXIV. 

Dilemma  as  to  Placing  Settees — Double  Service  of  out-of-door  Seats — Difference 
Between  Appreciation  of  Landscape  by  Men  and  by  Women— Right  of  all 
Strangers  to  enter  Beautiful  Grounds— Favor  of  being  Figures  on  the  Land 
scape—Ac.,  &c 153 

LETTER    XXV. 

A  Wet  September— Effect  on  Trees— Freshets— Dam-building— Nature's  Lesson 
in  Water-power,  &c.,  &c 158 

LETTER  XXVI. 

Wet  Seasons  Unfavorable  to  Hemlocks— The  First  Inland  Mile  on  the  Hudson— 
The  American  Malvern  and  Cheltenham— The  Steamboat  Landing  a  Fashion 
able  Resort — The  Highland  Gap  at  Sunset,  &c.  .  .  .  .  .  .  165 

LETTER    XXVII. 

Highway  Pigs— Giving  the  Old  Woman  a  Ride— Her  Favorite  Jemmy— Pork  and 
Poets— Common  Folks'  Knowledge  of  Neighbors— Letter  from  a  Correspon 
dent,  &c.,&c 172 


Xll  CONTEXTS. 

LETTER   XXVIII. 

Autumnal  Privileges— Extent  of  Personal  Orbit— Dignity  of  a  Daily  Diameter- 
Difference  between  Saddle  and  Carriage-Riding—Health  in  a  Nobody- 
bath,  &c.,  &c 182 

LETTER  XXIX. 

October's  First  Sunday — Silverbrook,  and  the  Blacksmith's  Story  of  its  History 
—Storm-King  and  Black  Peter— Effects  of  the  Avalanche— Tribute  to  Child 
ren's  Love,  &c.,  &c 187 

LETTER  XXX. 

Working  for  Neighbors— Answers  of  Inquiries  as  to  the  price  of  Land, 
Farms,  &c. — "  Harriet's"  Letter — Apples  Promiscuous  on  Barn-floor — Ac 
count  of  Society  around  us,  &c.,  &c 193 

LETTER  XXXI. 

Autumn  Splendors — Road  Tax  and  amateur  Road  Making — Society  for  Volunteer 
Raking — Difference  of  Roads  and  Neighborhoods — North  and  South  of  Idle- 
wild,  &c.,  &c.  202 

LETTER  XXXII. 

Discovery  of  an  Iron  Mine  in  the  Neighborhood— Lack  of  National  Quickness  at 
Beautifying  Scenery — Poem  on  the  Flood-ravages  at  Idlewild — Drawing  and 
Landscape-Gardening,  &c.,  &c 208 

LETTER  XXXIII. 

Sudden  Fall  of  Leaves — November  Haze — Fame  of  Newspaper-wrappers — Nam 
ing  of  a  Village— Legend  of  MOODNA,  the  Indian  Chief— Importance  of  Immor 
talizing  Men  and  Events  by  the  Naming  of  Towns,  &c.,  &c.  .  .  .214 

LETTER  XXXIV. 

Mellow  Middle  in  a  November  day — Ascent  to  Storm-King — Road  from  New- 
burg  to  West  Point — Chances  for  Human  Eyries — Difference  of  Climate  be 
tween  the  two  Mountain-sides — Home-like  familiarity  of  a  Brook,  &c.,  &c.  219 

LETTER   XXXV. 

Instance  of  Stick-a-pin-there — Survey  of  Premises  after  a  Freshet — History  of 
a  Dam — Specimen  of  Yankee  Coax-ocracy,  &c.,  &c 225 

LETTER   XXXVI. 

Fine  Specimen  of  a  Boy— Young  America— Mr.  Roe's  Boys'  School— Surveying 
Class  in  the  Paths  of  the  Ravine,  &c.,  &c 231 

LETTER   XXXVII. 

Interesting  to  Invalids  only— Letter  from  an  Invalid  Clergyman— Reply— Keep 
ing  Disease  in  the  Minority— Climate  of  the  Tropics— Importance  of  Attention 
to  Trifles,  in  Convalescence,  &c.,  &c .  235 


CONTENTS.  xiii 

LETTER  XXXVIII. 

Summer  in  December— Flippertigibbet— Idleness— Annual  Quarrelsomeness  of 
Dogs— Pig-influence— Home  without  a  Hog,  &c.,  &c.  «.  .  .  .  .  245 

LETTER  XXXIX. 

Visit  to  Seven  Lakes  and  Natural  Bridge— Torrey  the  Blacksmith— Sunday 
in  Nature— My  Companion's  Hobby— Hollett  the  Quaker— Morning  Sensa 
tions— Jonny  Kronk's  and  its  Cemetery— Mammoth  Snapping-Turtle— Iron 
Mine,  &c.,  &c 248 

LETTER  XL. 

Many-Lake  Alps  and  their  Woodsmen — Highland  Life — Contrast  between  it  and 
New  York,  only  three  Hours'  Distance — The  Difficulty — Natural  Bridge — 
Driven  on  the  Rocks — Hollett's  House,  and  our  Ascent  to  the  Peak — Seven 
Lakes— Quaker  and  Panther  Meeting  in  the  Woods,  &c.,  &c,  .  .  .  256 

LETTER  XLI. 

Degrees  of  Horseback  Acquaintance  with  a  Road— Slaughter-House  "Round 
by  Headley's  "—Geese  and  their  Envy— Goose-Descent  upon  Unexpected 
Ice,&c.,  &c 266 

LETTER   XLII. 

Pool  of  Bethesda  above  the  Highlands— Climate  of  Highland  Terrace— Late 
Snows— Christmas,  and  Dressing  of  Church— Poem  on  Farmers'  Christmas 
Preparations — Black  Peter — Snake  Love  of  Solitude,  &c.,  &c.  .  .  .  211 

LETTER   XLIII. 

Trip  of  the  Family  Wagon  to  Newburgh— The  Fashionable  Resort— Chapman's 
Bakery— Aristocracy  "  setled  down"— Newburgh  as  a  Neighbor.  .  .  277 

LETTER  XLIV. 

Personal  Experience  interesting  to  Invalids— Difficulty  as  to  Horseback  Exer 
cise—Advice  as  to  Winter-riding— Economies  in  Horse-owning— New  Idea  as 
to  Exposure — Philosophy  of  Exercise  to  Scholars,  &c.,  &c.  .  .  .  284 

LETTER   XLV. 

Snow  and  its  Uses— Winter  View  of  Grounds,  as  to  Improvements— Old  Women's 
Weather-Prophecy — Finding  of  an  Indian  God  in  the  Glen — Idlewild  a  Sanc 
tuary  of  Deities  of  the  Weather — Name  of  Moodna,  &c.,  &c.  .  .  294 

LETTER  XL VI. 

Hudson  Frozen  Solid — Boats  on  Runners — Water-lilies — Indian  Legend,  and 
Poem  on  it  by  a  Friend— Philosophy  of  naming  Streams  hereabouts— Angola 
and  its  Epidemic— Story  of  Smart  Boy,  &c.,  &c 302 

LETTER  XLVII. 

Boy-Teamster— Our  Republic's  worst-treated  Citizen— Boy  Condition  in  the 
Country— Our  Neighborhood  suited  to  Boy-Education  in  Farming— Vicinity 


Xiv  CONTENTS. 

of  New  York  Market— Boy-Labor  and  Boy-Slavery—City  Parents  and  their 
Disposal  of  Boys— Gardening  Profits,  &c.,  &c 309 

LETTER  XLVIII. 

Living  in  the  Country  all  the  Year  round— Trip3  to  the  City— Hindrances  by 
Snow  on  the  Track— Chat  in  the  hindered  Cars— Mr.  Irving— Bad  Ventilation 


— Late  Arrival,  &c.,  &c. 


321 


LETTER   XLIX. 

First  Signs  of  Spring— A  Public  of  Invalids— An  Invalid  Chronicle— Letter  from 
a  Lady— Our  Friend  S.— Beauty  of  Old  Age,  &c.,  &c 323 

LETTER   L. 

Breaking  up  of  the  River-ice— Dates  of  previous  Resumings  of  Navigation- 
Companionship  in  the  distant  Views  of  Travel— Nature's  Illnesses— Hill 
sides,  &c.,  &c 334 

LETTER  LI. 

Weather-wise  Squirrels— Effect  of  Spring  Winds  on  Roads— Dodge  of  Turnpike 
Companies— Anecdote  of  a  Teamster's  Revenge— The  Kings  in  Republics- 
Road  from  Newburgh  to  West  Point,  &c.,  &c 342 

LETTER  LII. 

Deceptive  Grass-Patch—Why  Northerners  love  Home— Tragedy  and  Turkey- 
cock— Suspicion  of  Neighborhood  and  Vindication— Don  Quixote,  the  New 
foundland  Dog— Flippertigibbet,  the  Terrier— My  Mare  and  her  Illness,  &c.  343 

LETTER   LIII. 

Cedar-Trees  and  their  Secrets— Bird-Presence  about  Home— Our  Night-Owl— A 
Bird's  Claim  on  Hospitality— Difference  between  City  and  Country  Influences- 
Death  in  a  Neighbor's  House,  &c.,  &c 356 

LETTER  LIV. 

A  Newfoundland  Dog  and  his  Nature— The  Beauty  of  a  Brook  as  a  Playfellow 
for  Children— Country  Life's  Opportunity  to  cultivate  Intimacy  with  Child 
ren—Local  Protection  against  East  Winds— Mechanical  Alleviation  for  Night- 
Coughs,  &c.,  &c 363 

LETTER   LV. 

Snow-Storm  in  April— Newburgh  to  become  a  Seaport— Railroad  from  Hobcken, 
opposite  Chamber  Street,  to  West  Point  and  Newburgh— Dutch  Aristocracy- 
American  difference  from  England  as  to  Living  near  the  Old  Families,  &c.  310 

LETTER  LVI. 

Birds  suffering  from  Snow— Answer  to  a  Fault-finder— Preparing  for  Old  Age 
by  learning  to  live  with  Nature— Another  Estimate  of  the  Value  of  Farming 
—Common  and  strangely  unvaried  Idea  of  "  a  Villa"— Hints  as  to  choosing 
and  arranging  a  Home  in  the  Country,  &c.,  Ac •  378 


CONTENTS.  XV 

LETTER  LVII. 

Remarkable  Land-slide— Woman  nearly  Buried— Our  Gateway  Stopped— 
Ravages  of  Floods — Embellishment  of  a  Neighbor's  Grounds  by  a  Land 
slide,  &c.,  &c 3S8 

LETTER   LVIII. 

Immense  Freshets— Islands  in  Solution— Curious  Slides— Brickyards  along  the 
Hudson— Irish  Laborers,  and  the  Contrast  between  them  and  Native-Born 
Country  People— The  Infusorial  Cemetery,  &c.,  &c 394 

LETTER  LIX. 

Distinctions  of  Rank  in  Vegetables— Splendid  Outburst  of  Spring— Chivalry 
among  Fowls— A  daily  Steamboat  Luxury  for  this  Neighborhood— Philosophy 
of  Visits  to  the  City,  &c.,&c 401 

LETTER  LX. 

Newness  of  Junes— Effects  of  the  Eclipse— Cows  embarrassed— Nature's  Ca 
prices—Visit  to  West  Point— The  Salute  to  the  Visiting  Committee— Cadets' 
Mess-Room—Professor  Weir  ^and  the  Gallery  of  Drawings— Parade— Stature 
of  the  Present  Class  of  Cadets,  &c.,  &c 410 

LETTER  LXI. 

Adventure  with  a  Snapping-Turtle— Wild  black  Cat,  and  other  quadruped 
Bandits — Visit  to  a  Revolutionary  Soldier — Venerable  Companion — Privations 
of  the  Army — Washington's  features,  &c.,  &c 424 

LETTER  LXII. 

Celebration  of  the  Fourth  of  July  by  Children— Procession  through  the  Grounds 
of  Idlewild— Song  by  the  Children— Their  Pic-nic  in  the  Grove— Speeches, 
&c.,&c 43T 

LETTER  LXIII. 

Government  of  the  American  Homestead— Republic  in  the  Country,  but  not  in 
the  City — Aristocracy  of  upper  Servants  not  tolerated — Each  Individual's 
Self-Esteem  to  be  cared  for— Irish  lad  in  his  progress  in  Americanizing— 
Difficulty  of  other  Servants  allowing  a  Head  Man,  &c.,  &c.  .  .  444 

LETTER    LXIV. 

Invalid  Wishes  for  Letters  on  their  Class  of  Subjects— Boston  Physician  and  his 
Alkaline  Treatment — Experiment  and  its  Failure — Consumption  and  its  Alle 
viations,  &c.,  <fec 459 

LETTER   LXV. 

Affection  for  our  Doctors — Excellent  Letter  from  my  Friend  of  the  Alkali — Taboo 
upon  Tea— Letter  from  an  Allopathic  Physician— Doctor's  Visits,  &c.,  &c.  4G8 

LETTER  LXVI. 
Chat  upon  Invalid  Indiscretions— Dietetics  of  the  Soul— Forenoon  on  Horse- 


Xvi  CONTENTS. 

back— Use  of  an  Errand  in  a  Ride— Steel  Pens,  and  the  consequent  Decline 
of  Penknives— Fatigue  after  Pleasure,  &c.,  &c 475 

LETTER  LXVII. 

Sufferers  from  Drought— Our  Hyla  or  Tree-toad— Cure  of  Jaundice— Abuses  by 
Telegraph-menders,  &c.,  &c 4S6 

LETTER  LXVIII. 

Difficulty  of  knowing  what  cures  Us— Od-ic  Influence— Letter  from  an  Artist, 
introducing  and  describing  an  Od-ometrician— His  Letter— The  Experiment 
— Table-movings,  &c.,  &c. 4 

LETTER  LXIX. 

Acquaintance  across  the  Styx— Letter  from  our  Friend  the  Od-ometri 
cian,  Ae 506 

LETTER  LXX. 

Certainty  of  a  Genius  Loci— ma  Susceptibility  of  Pique— Curious  Exercise  of 
it— The  Drip-Rock  Parlor— Check  to  a  falling  Leaf— Farewell.  .  .  513 


LETTERS  FROM   IDLEWILD. 


LETTER   I. 

THE     HIGHLAND     TERRACE. 

[  The  following  description,  written  for  Mr.  Putnam's  very  splendid  work,  the 
"  Book  of  the  Picturesque,"  was  published  immediately  before  the  commence 
ment  of  the  Letters  from  Idlewild,  and  while  the  author  was  deciding  upon 
the  spot  for  his  future  residence.  ] 

WEST  POINT  is  Nature's  Northern  Gate  to  New  York 
city.  As  soon  as  our  rail-trains  shall  equal  those  of 
England,  and  travel  fifty  or  sixty  miles  an  hour,  the 
Hudson,  as  far  as  West  Point,  will  be  but  a  fifty-mile  exten 
sion  of  Broadway.  The  river  banks  will  have  become  a 
suburban  avenue — a  long  street  of  villas,  whose  busiest 
resident  will  be  content  that  the  City  Hall  is  within  an 
hour  of  his  door.  From  this  metropolitan  avenue  into  the 
agricultural  and  rural  region,  the  outlet  will  be  at  the 
city's  Northern  Gate,  of  West  Point— a  gate  whose 


18  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE WILD. 

threshold  divides  Sea-board  from  In-land,  and  whose 
mountain  pillars  were  heaved  up  with  the  changeless 
masonry  of  creation. 

The  passage  through  the  Mountain-Gate  of  West 
Point  is  a  three-mile  Labyrinth,  whose  clue-thread  is  the 
channel  of  the  river — a  complex  wilderness,  of  romantic 
picturesqueness  and  beauty,  which  will  yet  be  the  teem 
ing  Switzerland  of  our  country's  Poetry  pencil — and,  at 
the  upper  and  northern  outlet  of  this  labyrinthine  portal 
of  the  city,  there  is  a  formation  of  hills  which  has  an  ex 
pression  of  most  apt  significance.  It  looks  like  a  gesture, 
of  welcome  from  Nature,  and  an  invitation  to  look  around 
you !  From  the  shoulder-like  bluff  upon  the  river,  an 
outspreading  range  of  Highlands  extends  back,  like  the 
curve  of  a  waving  arm — the  single  mountain  of  SHAWAN- 
GUXK  (connected  with  the  range  by  a  valley  like  the  bend 
of  a  graceful  wrist),  forming  the  hand  at  the  extremity. 
It  is  of  the  area  within  the  curve  of  this  bended  arm — a 
HIGHLAND  TERRACE  of  ten  or  twelve  miles  square,  on  the 
west  bank  of  the  river — that  we  propose  to  define  the 
capabilities,  and  probable  destiny. 

The  HIGHLAND  TERRACE  we  speak  of — ten  miles  square, 
and  lying  within  the  curve  of  this  outstretched  arm  of 
mountains — has  an  average  level  of  about  one  hundred 
and  twenty  feet  above  the  river.  It  was  early  settled  ; 
and,  the  rawness  of  first  clearings  having  long  ago  disap- 


THE  HIGHLAND  TERRACE.          19 

peared,  the  well-distributed  second  woods  are  full  grown, 
and  stand,  undisfigured  by  stumps,  in  park-like  roundness 
and  maturity.  The  entire  area  of  the  Terrace  contains 
several  villages,  and  is  divided  up  into  cultivated  farms, 
the  walls  and  fences  in  good  condition,  the  roads  lined 
with  trees,  the  orchards  full,  the  houses  and  barns  suffi 
ciently  hidden  with  foliage  to  be  picturesque— the  whole 
neighborhood,  in  fact,  within  any  driving  distance,  quite 
rid  of  the  angularity  and  well-known  ungracefulness  of  a 
newly-settled  country. 

Though  the  Terrace  is  a  ten-mile  plain,  however,  its 
roads  are  remarkably  varied  and  beautiful,  from  the 
curious  multiplicity  of  deep  glens.  These  are  formed  by 
the  many  streams  which  descend  from  the  half-bowl  of 
mountains  inclosing  the  plain,  and — their  descent  being 
rapid  and  sudden,  and  the  river  into  which  they  empty 
being  one  or  two  hundred  feet  below  the  level  of  the  coun 
try  around— they  have  gradually  worn  beds  much  deeper 
than  ordinary  streams,  and  are,  from  this  and  the  charac 
ter  of  the  soil,  unusually  picturesque.  At  every  mile  or 
so,  in  driving  which  way  you  will,  you  come  to  a  sudden 
descent  into  a  richly  wooded  vale— a  bright,  winding 
brook  at  bottom,  and  romantic  recesses  constantly  tempt 
ing  to  loiter.  In  a  long  summer,  and  with  perpetual  driv 
ing  over  these  ten-mile  iuterlacings  of  wooded  roads  and 
glens,  we  daily  found  new  scenery,  and  heard  of  beautiful 


20  LETTERS     FROM     IDLEWIL-D. 

spots,  within  reach  and  still  unseen.  From  every  little 
rise  of  the  road,  it  must  be  remembered,  the  broad  bosom 
of  the  Hudson  is  visible,  with  foreground  variously  com 
bined  and  broken  ;  and  the  lofty  mountains  (encircling  just 
about  as  much  scenery  as  the  eye  can  compass  for  enjoy 
ment),  form  an  ascending  background  and  a  near  horizon 
which  are  hardly  surpassed  in  the  world  for  boldness  and 
beauty.  To  what  degree  sunsets  and  sunrises,  clouds, 
moonlight,  and  storms,  are  aggrandized  and  embellished 
by  this  peculiar  formation  of  country,  any  student  and 
lover  of  nature  will  at  once  understand.  Life  may  be, 
outwardly,  as  much  more  beautiful,  amid  such  scenery,  as 
action  amid  the  scenery  of  a  stage  is  more  dramatic  than 
in  an  unfurnished  room. 

The  accessibilities  from  Highland  Terrace  are  very  de 
sirable.  West  Point  is  perhaps  a  couple  of  miles  below, 
by  the  river  bank  ;  and,  though  mountain-bluffs  and  pre 
cipices  now  cut  off  the  following  of  this  line  by  land,  a  road 
has  been  surveyed  and  commenced  along  the  base  of  Cro'- 
nest,  which,  when  completed,  will  be  one  of  the  most  pic 
turesque  drives  in  the  world.  A  part  of  it  is  to  be  blown 
out  from  the  face  of  the  rock  ;  and,  as  the  lofty  eminences 
will  almost  completely  overhang  it,  nearly  the  whole  road 
will  be  in  shade  in  the  afternoon.  To  pass  along  this  ro 
mantic  way  for  an  excursion  to  the  superb  military  grounds 
of  West  Point,  and  to  have  the  parades  and  music  within 


SUMMER     RESORTS.  21 

an  easy  drive,  will  be  certainly  an  unusual  luxury  for  a 
country  neighborhood.  The  communication  is  already 
open  for  vehicles,  by  means  of  a  steam  ferry,  which  runs 
between  Cornwall  Landing  (at  the  foot  of  the  Terrace), 
and  Cold  Spring  and  the  Military  Wharf — bringing  these 
three  beautiful  spots  within  a  few  minutes'  reach  of  each 
other — Morris  the  song- writer's  triple-view  site  of  "TJndcr- 
cliff,"  by  the  way,  overlooking  the  central  of  these  High 
land-Ferry  Landings. 

It  may  be  a  greater  or  less  attraction  to  the  locality  of 
the  Terrace,  but  it  is  no  disadvantage,  at  least,  that  three 
of  the  best  frequented  summer  resorts  are  within  an  after 
noon  drive  of  any  part  of  it — the  WEST  POINT  HOTEL, 
COZZENS'S,  which  is  a  mile  below,  and  POWELTON  HOUSE, 
which  is  five  or  six  miles  above  the  Point,  at  Newburgh. 
For  accessibility  to  these  fashionable  haunts  of  strangers 
and  travellers,  and  the  gaieties  and  hospitalities  for  which 
they  give  opportunity — for  enjoyment  of  military  shows 
and  music — for  all  manner  of  pleasure  excursions  by  land 
and  water,  to  glens  and  mountain-tops,  fishing,  hunting, 
and  studying  of  the  picturesque — Highland  Terrace  will 
probably  be  a  centre  of  attraction  quite  unequalled. 

The  river-side  length  of  the  Terrace  is  about  five  miles 
— CORNWALL  at  one  end  and  NEWBURGH  at  the  other.  At 
both  these  places  there  are  landings  for  the  steamers,  and 
from  both  these  are  steam  ferries  to  the  opposite  side  of 


Z2  LETTERS      FROM      IDLEWILD.  • 

% 

the  river,  bringing  the  fine  neighborhood  of  FISHKILL  and 
COLD  SPRING  within  easy  reach.  NEWBURGH  is  the  metro 
polis  of  the  Terrace — with  its  city-like  markets,  hotels, 
stores,  trades  and  mechanic  arts — an  epitome  of  New 
York  convenience  within  the  distance  of  an  errand. 
Downing,  one  of  our  most  eminent  horticulturists,  once 
resided  here,  and  Powell,  one  of  the  most  enterprising 
of  our  men  of  wealth,  lives  here  still  ;  and,  along  one  of 
the  high  acclivities  of  the  Terrace,  are  the  beautiful  coun 
try  seats  of  Durand,  our  first  landscape  painter,  Miller, 
who  has  presented  the  neighborhood  with  a  costly  and 
beautiful  church  of  stone,  Yerplanck,  Sands,  and  many 
others,  whose  tastes  in  ground  and  improvements  add 
beauty  to  the  river  drive. 

To  the  class  of  seekers  for  sites  of  rural  residences,  for 
whom  we  are  drawing  this  picture,  the  fact  that  the  Ter 
race  is  beyond  suburban  distance,  from  New  York,  will  be 
one  of  its  chief  recommendations.  What  may  be  under 
stood  as  "  Cockney  annoyances"  will  not  reach  it.  But 
it  will  still  be  sufficiently  and  variously  accessible  from 
the  city.  On  its  own  side  of  the  river  there  is  a  rail- 
route  from  Newburgh  to  Jersey  £ity,  whose  first  station 
is  in  the  centre  of  the  Terrace,  at  "  Yail's  Gate/'  and  by 
which  New  York  will  eventually  be  brought  within  two 
hours  or  less.  By  the  two  ferries  to  the  opposite  side  of 
the  river,  the  stations  of  the  Hudson  Railroad  are  also 


UNION     OF      GREAT     THOROUGHFARES.  23 

accessible,  bringing  the  city  within  equal  time  on  another 
route.  The  many  boats  upon  the  river,  touching  at  the 
two  landings  at  all  hours  of  day  and  night,  enable  you  to 
vary  the  journey  to  and  fro,  with  sleeping,  reading,  or 
tranquil  enjoyment  of  the  scenery.  Friends  may  come  to 
you  with  positive  luxury  of  locomotion,  and  without 
fatigue ;  and  the  monotony  of  access  to  a  place  of  resi 
dence,  by  any  one  conveyance — an  evil  very  commonly 
complained  of — is  delightfully  removed. 

There  is  a  very  important  advantage  of  the  Highland 
Terrace,  which  we  have  not  yet  named.  It  is  the  spot  on 
the  Hudson  where  the  two  greatest  thoroughfares  of  the  North 
are  to  cross  each  other.  The  intended  route  from  Boston  to 
Lake  Erie  here  intersects  the  rail-and-river  routes  between 
New  York  and  Albany.  Coming  by  Plainfield  and  Hart 
ford  to  Fishkill,  it  here  takes  ferry  to  Newburgh,  and 
traverses  the  Terrace  by  the  connecting  link  already  com 
pleted  to  the  Erie  Railroad — thus  bringing  Boston  within 
six  or  eight  hours  of  this  portion  of  the  river.  Western 
and  Eastern  travel  will  then  be  direct  from  this  spot,  like 
Southern  and  Northern  ;  and  Albany  and  New  York, 
Boston  and  Buffalo,  will  be  four  points  all  within  reach 
of  an  easy  excursion. 

To  many,  the  most  essential  charm  of  Highland  Ter 
race,  however  (as  a  rural  residence  in  connection  with 
life  in  New  York),  will  be  the  fact  that  it  is  the  nearest 


24          LETTERS   FROM   IDLE  WILD. 

accessible,  point  of  complete  inland  climate.  Medical  science 
tells  us  that  nothing  is  more  salutary  than  change  from 
the  seaboard  to  the  interior,  or  from  the  interior  to  the 
seaboard  ;  and  between  these  two  climates  the  ridge  of 
mountains  at  West  Point  is  the  first  effectual  separation. 

The  raw  east  winds  of  the  coast,  so  unfavorable  to 
some  constitutions,  are  stopped  by  this  wall  of  cloud- 
touching  peaks,  and,  with  the  rapid  facilities  of  communi 
cation  between  salt  and  fresh  air,  the  balance  can  be 
adjusted  without  trouble  or  inconvenience,  and  as  much 
taken  of  either  as  is  found  healthful  or  pleasant.  The 
trial  of  climate  which  the  writer  has  made,  for  a  long 
summer,  in  the  neighborhood  of  these  mountainous  hiding- 
places  of  electricity,  the  improvement  of  health  in  his 
own  family,  and  the  testimony  of  many  friends  who  have 
made  the  same  experiment,  warrant  him  in  commending 
it  as  a  peculiarly  salutary  and  invigorating  air. 

We  take  pains  to  specify,  once  more,  that  it  is  to  a 
certain  class,  in  view  of  a  certain  new  phase  in  the  philo 
sophy  of  life,  that  these  remarks  are  addressed.  For 
those  who  must  be  in  the  city  late  and  early,  on  any  and 
every  day,  the  distance  will  be  inconvenient,  unless  with 
unforeseen  advances  in  the  rate  of  locomotion.  For  those 
who  require  the  night  and  day  dissipations  of  New  York, 
and  who  have  no  resources  of  their  own,  a  nearer  resi 
dence  might  also  be  more  desirable.  For  mere  seekers 


HEALTH,  WEALTH,  AND  ENJOYMENT.   25 

of  seclusion  and  economy  it  is  too  near  the  city,  and  the 
neighborhood  would  be  too  luxurious.  But  for  those  who 
have  their  time  in  some  degree  at  their  own  disposal — 
who  have  competent  means  for  luxurious  independence — 
who  have  rural  tastes  and  metropolitan  refinements 
rationally  blended — who  have  families  which  they  wish 
to  surround  with  the  healthful  and  elegant  belongings  of 
a  home,  while,  at  the  same  time  they  wish  to  keep  pace 
with  the  world,  and  enjoy  what  is  properly  and  only 
enjoyable  in  the  stir  of  cities — for  this  class — the  class,  as 
we  said  before,  made  up  of  Leisure,  Refinement,  and 
Luxury — modern  and  recent  changes  are  preparing  a 
new  theory  of  what  is  enjoyable  in  life.  It  is  a  mixture 
of  city  and  country,  with  the  home  in  the  country.  And  the 
spot  with  the  most  advantages  for  the  first  American 
trial  of  this  new  combination,  is,  we  venture  confidently 
to  record,  the  HIGHLAND  TERRACE,  ENCIRCLED  IN  THE  EX 
TENDED  ARM  OF  THE  MOUNTAINS  ABOVE  WEST  POINT. 


26  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE WILD. 


LETTER  II. 

HIGHLAND     TERRACE     CONTINUED. 

[  This  Letter  also  preceded  the  commencement  of  the  regular  series  of  Idlewild 
Papers.] 

DAY  before  yesterday,  a  cold  and  raw  snow-storm  kept 
us  housed  by  the  fire.  To-day,  the  flies  were  troublesome 
to  my  horse,  and  the  shade  of  the  Sontags  of  the  woods — 
(the  maples,  still  full-leaved  and  only  more  beautiful  with 
auttmin) — was  refreshing  to  both  of  us.  It  is,  as  I  write, 
a  summer's  evening — crickets  iterating,  mosquitoes 
reconnoitering,  wasps  stretching  their  legs,  and  evidently 
reconsidering  their  premature  givings-over,  the  ground 
fragrant  with  the  twilight  dew,  and — my  pen  embarrass 
ed.  I  had  prepared  to  give  you  a  picture  of  the  Tropics, 
thinking  you  might  like  it  as  a  contrast  to  stave  off  the 
first  rudeness  of  winter.  But  in  Broadway,  to-day,  it 
must  have  been  as  hot  as  Hayti — and  of  Hayti,  therefore, 
you  would  rather  read  when  it  is  cooler.  What  shall  I 
write  about  ? 

October  and  Webster  have  left  us — one  gone  to  the 
Past,  the  other  to  the  Future — but  the  parting  of  both, 


AN     OCTOBER     SABBATH.  27 

like  a  Sabbath  of  midsummer.  What  a  day  was  Sunday, 
the  31st  !— tranquil,  balmy,  genial,  beautiful.  I  spent 
its  "  service-time  "  with  Nature — not  irreligiously  to  my 
self,  though  I  fear  it  seemed  so  to  my  neighbors.  Let 
me  describe  it  to  you  (even  if  there  seem  little  to  record), 
for  the  apparition  of  beauty,  in  face,  or  mountain, 
weather  or  flower,  grows  to  be  more  and  more  of  an 
event  to  me.  Standing  aside  and  letting  the  world  crowd 
on,  as  I  have  done  of  late,  the  sense  of  what  is  fair  and 
excellent  has  rallied,  like  the  quality  which  the  pressure 
had  most  overborne,  and  I  am  most  moved  by  what  the 
day  brings  to  admire.  Is  this  a  change  to  be  sad  about  ? 
We  should  have  a  sweet  word,  like  "  sunset,"  for  depart 
ed  health — the  clouds  so  brighten  with  it. 

As  I  was  saying,  October's  dying  day  was  a  Sabbath 
of  profound  beauty.  (You  may  have  realized  it  in  the 
city,  as  the  prisoner  hears  the  music  of  the  band  march 
ing  under  his  window.)  I  drove  along  the  Hudson,  a 
mile  or  more — taking  wife  and  children  to  church — and, 
with  the  last  note  of  the  bell,  stood  tying  my  horse  to  the 
fence.  (You  know  the  church.  It  is  that  pretty  struc 
ture  of  stone  which  is  the  gem  of  this  ten-mile  Terrace  of 
the  Highlands.  The  bell,  in  its  turret  you  remember, 
sends  its  echoes  into  the  elfin  haunt  of  Drake's  poem — • 
the  wild  home  of  the  "  Culprit  Fay.")  Just  across  the 
road  lay  a  broad  lawn,  with  a  skirt  of  noble  trees  on  its 


28  LETTERS      FROM      I  D  L  E  W  I  L  D  . 

farther  edge,  and  the  river  lay  below.  Ah,  thought  I,  as 
I  looked  around,  that  little  church  is  but  a  chapel  within 
a  vast  cathedral— the  Hudson  a  broad  aisle,  the  High 
lands  a  thunder-choir  and  gallery,  Black  Rock  a  pulpit, 
and  a  blue  dome  over  all— and  lo  !  Nature,  in  her  sur 
plice  of  summer,  ready  to  preach  the  sermon  !  Why  not 
do  my  worshipping  out  of  doors  ? 

I  have  always  found  it  easier  to  be  devout  when  pacing 
slowly,  than  when  sitting  still.  I  should  pray  better, 
even  in  a  church,  if  I  could  walk  the  aisle,  instead  of 
remaining  motionless  in  a  pew.  "  The  groves  were  God's 
first  temples,"  and  it  was,  perhaps,  because  men  could 
there  walk  and  pray  that  the  early  saints  were  more  pious. 
The  more  the  body  is  pent  up,  the  more  thoughts  wander, 
is  a  common  human  experience,  I  believe — truer  even  of 
pews  than  of  prisons. 

Nature,  as  you  know,  seldom  repeats  herself,  even  in 
an  every-day  morning,  but  seems  to  keep  sky  and  weather 
in  an  eternal  succession  of  new  experiments.  I  had  never 
seen  the  Hudson  look  as  on  this  last  day  of  October.  It 
was  strange  as  well  as  beautiful.  The  Terrace  Bay  (that 
broad  sheet  spread  below  the  ten-mile  lap  of  the  High 
lands,  on  a  knee  of  which  sits  Newburgh),  was  all  one 
breathless  surface,  but  half  of  it  was  in  shadow  as  dark 
as  polished  steel.  Water  so  silvery  bright  and  so  inky 
black  I  never  had  seen  together.  Of  every  mountain 


NATURE'S   SERMON.  29 

there  was  a  mirrored  reflex  ;  but  one  was  copied  in  light, 
one  in  darkness — like  truth  in  reputation.  And  the  sails 
of  a  fleet  of  becalmed  vessels  dotted  this  far  mirror  like 
snow-flakes  lightly  fallen.  Nothing  moved.  Nature 
seemed  to  have  bid  even  the  un-Sabbath-keeping  keels  to 
stop  and  let  the  scene  look  holy. 

Up  and  down  under  the  trees  edging  the  high  bank  of 
the  river,  I  paced  out  the  service-time,  hearing  every  note 
of  the  organ,  hymning  it  on  the  other  side  of  the  lawn, 
and  eloquently  preached  to,  by  Nature — the  theme  God's 
wondrous  works,  and  our  many  blessings  in  open  air.  It 
was  a  sermon  I  shall  remember.  My  heart  was  warm 
with  it  as  I  met  the  congregation  coming  from  the  ser 
mon  iu  the  church,  though  probably  they,  and  the 
preacher  I  had  not  heard,  set  me  down  for  a  vagrant, 
profaning  the  clay.  My  mention  of  it,  as  you  will  under 
stand,  is  partly  vindicatory.  Die  who  will,  in  these  days, 
the  obituary  notices  strive  mainly  to  prove  that  he  was 
Dious. 


30  LETTERS      FROM      IDLEWILD. 


LETTER  III. 

Lessening  the  Brook— Pig-Prophecy— Nearing  of  the  City  with  Spring— the 
City  Eye,  as  felt  in  the  Country— Telegraph  Wires,  ^Eolian. 

April  2rf,  1353. 

THE  Brook  of  Idlewild,  like  myself,  is  beginning  to  les 
sen  its  individualism,  at  the  approach  of  summer  visitors. 
With  the  preparation  for  coming  back  of  the  leaves,  the 
torrent,  so  lonely  and  loud  in  winter,  begins  to  hush  to  a 
brook  little  heard  ;  and  its  foam-clad  cascades  and  rapids 
show  but  for  common  rocks,  blest  only  in  the  pleasant 
shade  that  comes  with  their  renewed  insignificance.  So 
it  is  1  Take  summer  from  us — stream  or  man — and, 
"  with  the  winter  of  our  discontent,"  comes  a  strengthening 
of  the  floods  within  us,  these  again  stilling  and  lessening 
with  the  return  of  more  genial  surroundings.  Come,  bro 
ther  brook  !  let  us  murmur  contented  along  !  What  we 
lose  in  one  season  we  gain  in  another — the  lonelier  and 
colder  around,  the  louder  and  prouder  in  ourselves — the 
bleaker,  the  stronger — the  drearier,  the  more  clothed  with 
music  and  majesty  of  our  own. 

Spite  of  the  pig-prophecy  in  December,  we  have  had 
plenty  of  snow  ;  the  frost,  of  course,  having  little  chance 


URBSINBUBE.  31 

at  the  ground,  and  the  freshets  abundant — both  hasten- 
ers  of  Spring.  Yet  it  was  a  sensible  old  woman  of  our 
neighborhood  who  brought  me  the  report.  She  went  to 
the  pig-killing,  as  usual,  to  beg  the  pig's  melt  for  her  cat. 
And  this  layer  of  unwholesome  fat — Nature's  prepara 
tion  against  cold,  like  an  inside  blanket  for  the  bowels  of 
the  pig — she  assured  me  was,  "  this  year,  next  to 
nothing,  and  a  sure  sign  of  little  or  no  snow."  I  hired 
a  sleigh  instead  of  buying  one,  upon  the  strength  of  it — 
of  course  a  loser  by  putting  my  faith  in  pig's  bowels  and 
their  prophetic  preparations  for  the  winter. 

With  the  disappearance  of  ice  from  the  Hudson  (so 
that  we  can  cross  regularly  to  the  railroad),  and  with  the 
reappearance  of  the  steamers  on  the  river,  we  are  shoved 
down  to  a  suburb  once  more.  The  rattling  monster 
plying  along  the  shore  opposite,  with  its  smoke-tail  high 
in  air,  was  in  New  York  an  hour  arid  a  half  ago.  Broad 
way  is  within  reach — shops  and  picture-galleries,  lions  and 
lectures,  calls  and  confectionery,  friends  and  fashions, 
dust,  dandies  and  omnibuses — all  within  the  goings  and 
comings  of  a  day.  Yet  we  have  been  country-folks  for 
six  months — so  remotely  buried  behind  mountains  and 
dilatory  mails,  that  the  city  seemed  a  perpetual  yes 
terday,  impossible  to  sympathize  with  or  make  use  of. 
The  Highland  Terrace  (the  ten-mile  lap  of  mountains  on 
whose  knee  we  sit,  overlooking  the  river)  is  the  Switzer- 


32          LETTERS  FROM   IDLEWILD. 

land  of  summer  visitors  from  New  York ;  the  place  to 
bring  families  to,  for  change  of  air  ;  the  paradise  of 
scenery  and  farm  boarding-houses  with  little  to  pay  ;  no 
gaieties  except  pic-nic-ing  and  horseback-riding,  and  no 
champagne  or  "  fashion,"  except  what  you  bring  with  you. 
Half  the  population  of  the  neighborhood,  therefore,  drops 
away  with  the  autumn  foliage  and  returns  with  the  violets 
and  strawberries.  But  it  is  droll  what  a  double  sort  of 
place  it  makes,  to  have  the  society  thus  deciduous. 
Where  the  trees  and  farm-houses  shed  their  leaves  and 
lodgers  together,,  it  curiously  intensifies  "the  seasons"  for 
those  who  stay  on  with  the  evergreens. 

No  !  judging  by  the  "  teams"  and  people  on  the  road, 
you  would  scarce  believe  yourself  in  the  same  part  of  the 
country,  before  the  "  first  cold  snap  "  and  after.  City  lin 
gerers  stay  on  till  then.  But  when  a  fire  to  breakfast 
by  is  no  longer  a  deniable  necessity — and,  with  some 
particularly  frosty  morning,  there  is  a  general  radiation, 
towards  the  steamboat  landing,  of  loads  of  trunks,  chil 
dren's  chairs,  bathing-tubs,  servants  and  side-saddles — 
the  feel  of  the  city  eye  is,  by  common  consent,  suddenly 
taken  off.  For  the  first  time  in  six  months,  it  is  obvious 
that  everybody  passing  has  dressed  for  the  neighbors 
only.  Even  the  few  wealthy  people  who  occupy  the  beau 
tiful  sites  upon  the  river,  lay  aside  their  fine  carriages  and 
begin  to  do  their  driving  in  light  wagons.  The  farmers, 


T  E  L  E  G  R  A  P  H  I  C     M  U  S  I  C  .  33 

however, — the  "  regular  bone  and  sinew,"  who  would 
scout  the  ides,  of  being  subject  to  anybody's  criticism  of 
their  appearance — betray,  by  a  unmistakable  eruption  of 
old  hats,  shabby  coats  and  rusty  harnesses,  that  the  dis 
ease  of  human  vanity  is  epidemic  ;  that  they  had  been  all 
summer  "sitting  for  their  pictures"  to  the  strangers 
among  us  ;  that  the  neighbors,  who  know  all  about  our 
crops  and  acres,  are  not  to  be  so  carefully  dressed  for  ;  and 
that,  now  the  pretty  girls  are  gone  from  the  roads,  with 
their  broad-brimmed  straw  hats  and  blue  ribbons,  even 
the  riding  behind  a  team  is  a  different  matter — horses, 
somehow,  to  be  less  curried,  and  shaving  every  day  not 
so  absolutely  necessary. 

To  being  affected  by  the  season,  however — to  being 
less  susceptible  to  winter  than  to  summer  wind — thefe  is 
one  delicious  exception.  With  a  November  blast  as  with 
a  June  breeze,  the.  news  passes  to  music !  Whether  country 
folks  or  city  belles  listen,  the  JEolian  harps  strung  along 
upon  the  telegraph  poles,  play  perpetually  the  same.  To 
the  strange  beauty  of  this  music  (little  noticed  or  valued) 
I  have  become  quite  wedded,  in  my  life  out  of  doors,  for 
the  last  winter.  It  is  more  varied  and  beautiful  than 
people  think.  You  can  always  hear  it — if  not  as  you 
walk  upon  the  road,  at  least  by  laying  your  ear  against 
the  poles — and,  by  selecting  one  that  stands  near  a 
running  stream,  you  may  hear  a  duet  of  breeze  and  brook, 


34         LETTERS   FROM   IDLEWILD. 

a  capricious  out-singing  of  each  other  alternately  by  wind 
and  water,  that  is  as  heavenly  to  muse  by  as  a  voluntary 
of  Nature  well  could  be.  The  poles  differ  very  much, 
both  in  the  quantity  and  quality  of  sound — partly,  per 
haps,  from  difference  of  size,  or  kind  of  wood,  or  tightness 
with  which  the  wire  is  pressed  by  the  leaning — but,  by  stop 
ping  in  your  walks,  you  get  to  know  these  with  their  vari 
ations,  and  you  may  thus  choose  your  standing-place,  and 
have  music  fainter  or  louder  to  suit  your  mood.  There  is 
one  telegraph  post,  by  a  little  bridge  which  crosses  Idle- 
wild  Brook,  where  I  have  heard  a  great  deal  of  waking- 
dream  accompaniment.  Stopping  there  with  the  glow  of 
exercise  in  the  blood,  there  seems  a  kind  of  fellowship  in 
the  instrument's  being,  like  oneself,  independent  of  the 
wintry  air.  The  invalid's  nerves,  too  (as  much  more 
susceptible  to  pleasure  as  to  pain),  are  ready  for  harmony 
in  its  most  delicate  caprices.  What  news  was  going  past 
on  those  wires — what  death  or  marriage,  love  or  business, 
was  being  told  in  those  varied  vibrations — I  did  not  lose 
romance  by  trying  to  guess  or  discriminate.  The  samo 
tune  seldom  carries  the  same  language  to  any  two  hearts. 
But  there  it  was,  murmuring  day  by  day,  in  changeful 
contention  with  the  brook,  always  somewhat  audible 
when  closely  listened  for,  and  often  as  loud  as  a  love- 
whisper,  and  as  changefully  expressive,  and  I  must  own 
to  have  grown  habituated  to  it  as  a  luxury.  How  many 


FREE     OPERAS.  35 

good  things  we  may  have,  in  this  mercenary  world,  after 
all,  without  paying  for  them  !  "  Telegraphing  is  expen 
sive,"  but  here  is  its  greatest  advantage  (per  my  use)  and 
nothing  to  pay.  I  trust  the  stockholders  will  not  take 
the  hint,  however,  and  put  sentry-boxes  around  the  posts, 
to  be  let  out  for  roadside  operas ! 


36  LETTERS     FROM     IDLKWILD. 


LETTER  IY. 

Slight  of  Small  Streams  in  the  Landscape— Character  of  Idlewild  Brook— Legend 
and  Name  of  our  Nearest  Village. 

April  16, 1853. 

AMONG  "  the  neglected  of  this* world,"  I  have  always 
thought,  are  the  streams  under  the  river  size — those  that 
have  valleys  of  their  own  and  can  turn  a  mill,  but  are 
not  navigable  and  scarcely  "  down  on  the  map."  The 
way  travellers  go  up  the  Hudson, — expatiating  on  its 
scenery  and  glorifying  it  in  prose  and  rhyme,  but  pass, 
without  even  a  look  of  inquiry  or  recognition,  the  outlet- 
openings  of  numberless  "runs,"  brooks,  "creeks,"  and 
"  kills,"  which  are  tributary  to  that  noble  river,  but  as 
beautiful  in  degree  and  much  more  varied  and  secluded 
is,  like  the  treatment  of  the  lesser  poets,  a  thing  to  bo 
protested  against,  if  only  to  show  that,  of  such  servile 
Csesar-or-nobody-dom,  such  unenlightened  worship  of 
mere  bigger-ness,  one  is  not,  oneself,  a  part. 

My  own  experience  is,  that  it  must  be  a  small  stream 
to  be  enjoyed,  both  sides  a^  a  time.  From  the  deck  of  a 
steamer  on  the  Hudson,  its  two  shores  are  so  indistinct 
as  to  be  only  admired  for  what  beauty  of  outline  they 


IDLE  WILD     BROOK.  3f 

may  have.  The  slopes,  dells,  jutting  banks,  rock-shadows, 
caprices  of  curve  at  water's  edge,  verdure  and  foliage,  are 
confused  by  the  distance  into  a  wall  of  grey.  Hence  the 
disappointment  that  is  sometimes  expressed  by  the  steam 
boat  passenger,  at  a  first  view  of  the  river  of  whose 
beauty  he  has  heard  so  much.  Landscape-loving  is  more 
affectionate  than  reverential.  One  wants  just  enough  of 
it.  That  key-word  to  happiness,  competency — what  one 
is  competent  to  appreciate  and  no  more — may  be  applied 
as  aptly  to  water-courses  as  to  wealth.  Though  living 
upon  the  bank  of  the  Hudson,  therefore,  and  admiring  it 
boundlessly  in  the  labyrinth  of  Highlands  through  which 
it  winds  away  from  my  daily  view,  I  shall  be  tender 
hearted  only  to  the  brook  hidden  behind  me.  The  glen 
of  Idlewild  is  but  a  morning's  ramble  in  extent — a  kind 
of  Trenton  Falls  for  one — but,  its  stream  falling  over  a 
hundred  feet  within  our  own  gate,  and  sometimes  a  cata 
ract  that  would  bring  down  a  sloop  or  a  lumber-raft,  it 
has  varieties  of  charm  that  will  at  least  occupy  what 
loving  I  have  time  for.  I  have  a  chance  sympathy  with 
it,  in  one  point,  moreover.  The  salable  uses  to  which  its 
power  has  been  put — its  "  water-privileges  " — are  now  of 
little  or  no  value.  A  miller  near  me,  even  with  plenty  of 
water,  finds  it  cheaper  to  grind  by  steam.  A  "  mill-seat " 
and  a  poem  are  things  getting  less  and  less  likely  to  "  pay." 
We  are  becoming  mere  ornamentals,  Idlewild  and  I. 


38  LETTERS      FROM     IDLEWILD. 

What  poetry  I  may  write  upon  irresistible  impulse,  and 
what  vagaries  of  water  there  may  be,  from  snow-melting 
or  summer  freshet,  will  be  for  those  who  idle  near  us,  or 
for  such  occasional  appreciate*  as  chance  may  send  along. 

My  windows — some  two  hundred  feet  above  the  Hud 
son — overhang,  on  one  side,  the  meeting  of  our  lovely 
brook  with  a  respectable  creek  ;  which  two  tributaries, 
immediately  after,  glide  blissfully  together  into  the  great 
river,  and  (like  many  a  beau  and  belle,  famous  while 
separate,  but  who  marry  and  are  heard  of  no  more)  pass 
the  remainder  of  their  fresh-water  life  in  swelling  the 
general  stream  where  they  are  useful  and  forgotten. 

The  "  creek"  I  should  redeem  from  the  English  inter 
pretation  of  the  word.  It  is  not  an  " inlet"  or  "corner 
in  a  haven,"  but  a  rocky  and  rapid  stream,  coming  down 
by  a  noble  aisle  from  the  mountains,  and  as  large  as  half 
the  celebrated  rivers  of  England.  Its  name  is  a  matter 
of  some  doubt.  The  common  people  call  it  "  Murderer's 
Creek,"  which  the  more  intelligent  of  the  neighbors  say 
is  a  corruption  of  Moodna's  Creek — Moodna*  having 
been  the  name  of  an  Indian  chief  whose  tribe  lingered 
long  by  its  secluded  waters  after  the  coming  of  the  white 
man. 

My  next  neighbor  up  stream,  Mr.  Philip  Verplank 

*  Still  others  say  that  the  word  is  Merdner,  and  that  this  was  the  name  of  the 
first  English  settler. 


INDIAN      TRADITION.  39 

(between  whose  noble  promontory  lawn  and  our  own 
Highland  eyrie  these  two  streams  have  their  meadow- 
meeting  and  united  forthgoing),  gives  me  the  following  as 
a  tradition  which  may  possibly  contain  the  etymology. 
It  is  a  slip  from  an  old  newspaper,  and  I  copy  it  as  it 
stands  : 

"  Little  more  than  a  century  ago,  the  beautiful  region  watered 
by  this  stream  was  possessed  by  a  small  tribe  of  Indians,  which 
has  long  since  become  extinct,  or  incorporated  with  some  other 
savage  nation  of  the  West.  Three  or  four  hundred  yards  from 
where  the  stream  discharges  itself  into  the  Hudson,  a  white  family 
of  the  name  of  Stacey  had  established  itself  in  a  log  house,  by 
tacit  permission  of  the  tribe,  to  whom  Stacey  had  made  himself 
useful  by  his  skill  in  a  variety  of  little  arts  highly  estimated  by 
the  savages.  In  particular,  a  friendship  subsisted  between  him 
and  an  old  Indian  called  Naoman,  who  often  came  to  his  house, 
and  partook  of  his  hospitality.  The  Indians  never  forgive  injuries 
or  forget  benefits.  The  family  consisted  of  Stacey,  his  wife,  and 
two  children — a  boy  and  a  girl — the  former  five,  the  latter  three 
years  old. 

"  One  day  Naoman  came  to  Stacey's  log  hut,  in  his  absence, 
lighted  his  pipe,  and  sat  down.  He  looked  very  serious,  some 
times  sighed  deeply,  but  said  not  a  word.  Stacey's  wife  asked 
him  what  was  the  matter,  and  if  he  was  sick.  He  shook  his  head, 
sighed,  but  said  nothing,  and  soon  went  away.  The  next  day  he 
came  again,  and  behaved  in  the  same  manner.  Stacey's  wife 
began  to  think  strange  of  this,  and  related  it  to  her  husband,  who 
advised  her  to  urge  the  old  man  to  an  explanation  the  next  time 


40  LETTERS      FROM      I  D  L  E  W  I  L  D  . 

he  came.  Accordingly,  when  he  repeated  his  visit  the  day  after, 
she  was  more  importunate  than  usual.  At  last  the  old  Indian 
said — 

"  '  I  am  a  red  man,  and  the  pale  faces  are  our  enemies — why 
should  I  speak?' 

"  '  But  my  husband  and  I  are  your  friends  ;  you  have  eaten  salt 
with  us  a  thousand  times,  and  my  children  have  sat  on  your  knee 
as  often.  If  you  have  anything  on  your  mind,  tell  it  me.' 

"  '  It  will  cost  me  my  life  if  it  is  known,  and  the  white-faced 
women  are  not  good  at  keeping  secrets,'  replied  Naoman. 

"  '  Try  me,  and  see.' 

"  '  Will  you  swear  by  your  Great  Spirit  you  will  tell  none  but 
your  husband  ?' 

" '  I  have  none  else  to  tell.' 

" '  But  will  you  swear  ?' 

" '  I  do  swear  by  our  Great  Spirit  I  will  tell  none  but  my 
husband.' 

" '  Not  if  my  tribe  should  kill  you  for  not  telling  ?' 

" '  Not  if  your  tribe  should  kill  me  for  not  telling.' 

"Naoman  then  proceeded  to  tell  her  that,  owing  to  some 
encroachments  of  the  white  people  below  the  mountain,  his  tribe 
had  become  irritated,  and  were  resolved  that  night  to  massacre  all 
the  white  settlers  within  their  reach.  That  she  must  send  for  her 
husband,  inform  him  of  the  danger,  and  as  secretly  and  speedily  as 
possible  take  their  canoe,  and  paddle  with  all  haste  over  the  river 
to  Fishkill  for  safety.  '  Be  quick  and  do  nothing  that  may  excite 
suspicion,'  said  Naoman,  as  he  departed. 

"  The  good  wife  sought  her  husband,  who  was  down  on  the  river 
fishing,  told  him  the  story,  and  as  no  time  was  to  be  lost,  they 
proceeded  to  their  boat,  which  was  unluckily  filled  with  water. 


THE      PURSUIT      AND      CAPTURE.  41 

It  took  some  time  to  clear  it  out,  and  meanwhile  Stacey  recol 
lected  his  gun  which  had  been  left  behind.  He  proceeded  to  the 
house  and  returned  with  it.  All  this  took  up  considerable  time, 
and  precious  time  it  proved  to  this  poor  family. 

"  The  daily  visits  of  old  Naoman,  and  his  more  than  ordinary 
gravity,  had  excited  suspicion  in  some  of  the  tribe,  who  had 
accordingly  paid  particular  attention  to  the  movements  of  Stacey. 
One  of  the  young  Indians  who  had  been  kept  on  the  watch,  seeing 
the  whole  family  about  to  take  their  boat,  ran  to  the  little  Indian 
village,  about  a  mile  off,  and  gave  the  alarm.  Five  Indians  col 
lected,  ran  down  to  the  river  side,  where  their  canoes  were  moored, 
jumped  in  and  paddled  after  Stacey,  who,  by  this  time,  had  got 
some  distance  out  into  the  stream.  They  gained  on  him  so  fast, 
that  twice  he  dropped  his  paddle  and  took  up  his  gun.  But  his 
wife  prevented  his  shooting,  by  telling  him,  that  if  he  fired,  and 
they  were  afterwards  overtaken,  they  would  meet  no  mercy  from 
the  Indians.  He  accordingly  refrained,  and  plied  his  paddle,  till 
the  sweat  rolled  in  big  drops  down  his  forehead.  All  would  not 
do  ;  they  were  overtaken  within  a  hundred  yards  of  the  shore,  and 
carried  back  with  shouts  of  yelling  triumph. 

''When  they  got  on  shore,  the  Indians  set  fire  to  Stacey's house, 
and  dragged  himself,  his  wife  and  children  to  their  village.  Here 
the  principal  old  men,  and  Naoman  among  the  rest,  assembled  to 
deliberate  on  the  affair.  The  chief  among  them,  stated  that  some 
of  the  tribe  had  undoubtedly  been  guilty  of  treason  in  apprising 
Stacey,  the  white  man,  of  the  designs  of  the  tribe,  whereby  they 
took  the  alarm  and  well-nigh  escaped.  He  proposed  to  examine 
the  prisoners,  as  to  who  gave  the  information.  The  old  men 
assented  to  this,  Naoman  among  the  rest.  Stacey  was  first  inter 
rogated  by  one  of  the  old  men,  who  spoke  English,  and  inter- 


42         LETTERS   FROM   IDLE WILD. 

preted  to  the  others.  Stacey  refused  to  betray  his  informant.  His 
wife  was  then  questioned,  while  at  the  same  moment  two  Indians 
stood  threatening  the  two  children  with  tomahawks  in  case  she  did 
not  confess.  She  attempted  to  evade  the  truth,  by  declaring  that 
she  had  a  dream  the  night  before  which  had  alarmed  her,  and  that 
she  had  persuaded  her  husband  to  fly. 

"  '  The  Great  Spirit  never  deigns  to  talk  in  dreams  to  a  white 
face,'  said  the  old  Indian  :  '  Woman,  thou  hast  two  tongues  and 
two  faces.  Speak  the  truth,  or  thy  children  shall  surely  die.' 
The  little  boy  and  girl  were  then  brought  close  to  her,  and  the 
two  savages  stood  over  them,  ready  to  execute  their  bloody  orders. 

" '  Wilt  thou  name,'  said  the  old  Indian,  '  the  red  man  who 
betrayed  his  tribe  ?  I  will  ask  thee  three  times.'  The  mother 
answered  not.  '  Wilt  thou  name  the  traitor  ?  This  is  the  second 
time.'  The  poor  mother  looked  at  her  husband,  and  then  at  her 
children,  and  stole  a  glance  at  Naoman,  who  sat  smoking  his  pipe 
with  invincible  gravity.  She  wrung  her  hands  and  wept ;  but 
remained  silent.  l  Wilt  thou  name  the  traitor  ?  'tis  the  third  and 
last  time.'  The  agony  of  the  mother  waxed  more  bitter ;  again 
she  sought  the  eye  of  Naoman,  but  it  was  cold  and  motionless  ;  a 
pause  of  a  moment  awaited  her  reply,  and  the  tomahawks  were 
raised  over  the  heads  of  the  children,  who  besought  their  mother 
not  to  let  them  be  murdered. 

" '  Stop !'  cried  Naoman.  All  eyes  were  turned  upon  him. 
'  Stop !'  repeated  he,  in  a  tone  of  authority.  '  White  woman,  thou 
hast  kept  thy  word  with  me  to  the  last  moment.  I  am  the  traitor. 
I  have  eaten  of  the  salt,  warmed  myself  at  the  fire,  shared  the 
kindness  of  these  Christian  white  people,  and  it  was  I  that  told 
them  of  their  danger.  I  am  a  withered,  leafless,  branchless  trunk ; 
cut  me  down  if  you  will.  I  am  ready.'  A  yell  of  indignation 


A      VILLAGE      WITHOUT      A      NAME.  43 

sounded  on  all  sides.  Naoman  descended  from  the  little  bank 
where  he  sat ;  shrouded  his  face  with  his  mantle  of  skins,  and  sub 
mitted  to  his  fate.  He  fell  dead  at  the  feet  of  the  white  woman, 
by  a  blow  of  a  tomahawk. 

"  But  the  sacrifice  of  Naoman,  and  the  firmness  of  the  Christian 
white  woman,  did  not  suffice  to  save  the  lives  of  the  other  victims. 
They  perished — how,  it  is  needless  to  say  ;  and  the  memory  of 
their  fate  has  been  preserved  in  the  name  of  the  pleasant  stream  on 
whose  banks  they  lived  and  died,  which  to  this  day  is  called 
Murderer's  Creek." 

But  this  indifference,  as  to  name,  seems  to  grow  upon 
its  banks.  One  of  the  most  picturesque  and  lovely  little 
villages  in  our  country  lies  nestled  in  the  bent  arm  of  its 
outlet — and  without  a  name !  The  inhabitants  cannot 
tell  you  where  they  live.  To  be  sure,  it  is  so  in  the 
bottom  of  a  well — so  down  in  the  deepest  cleft  of  the 
Highlands,  that  a  bird  would  almost  fly  over  without 
seeing  it  (buried  in  trees,  too,  for  the  gentlemen  resid 
ing  there  have  charmingly  respected  them)  ;  but  still 
newspapers  and  letters  must  come  ;  and  theirs  are 
addressed  to  the  neighboring  and  smaller  village  of  New 
Windsor.  It  is  to  this  place  without  a  name,  as  the 
nearest  to  my  home,  that  I  must,  henceforth,  properly 
belong.  If  it  were  but  the  beginning  a  little  earlier  to  be 
forgotten  altogether,  one  might  ex-paragraph  thither 
to  be  "lapt  in  elysium" — but  while  still  liable  to  "  obitu 
ary  notice,"  the  lack  of  that  ever-third  word,  "Died 


44         LETTERS   FROM   IDLEWILD. 

r  at ,"  might  imply  a  careless  disrespect.     Shall  wo 

have  a  name  to  our  village,  dear  Postmaster-General  ? 
It  is  at  the  meeting  of  three  streams  of  different  magni 
tudes — Hudson  River,  Moodua  Creek,  and  Idlewild  Brook 
— and  Moore's  "Avoca"  has  become  an  understood 
designation  for  a  meeting  of  waters.  May  we  call  it 
AVOCA  ?  It  would  be  descriptive  as  well  as  musical — 
useful  too,  for  that  sweet  -song  might  well  embody  a 
tempting  spirit  of  inhabitiveness.  I  will  leave  the  sug 
gestion  upon  echo. 


FARM  LAND  AND   FANCY  LAND.      45 


LETTER    Y. 

Reasons  for  Neighbors  moving  Off— Morals  of  Steamboat  Landings — Class  that 
is  gradually  taking  Possession  of  the  Hudson — Thought-property  in  a  Resi 
dence — Horizon-clock  of  Idlewild — Society  for  the  Eye,  in  a  View. 

April  23,1853. 

I  MET  one  of  my  neighbors  yesterday,  seated  in  Ms 
wife's  rocking-chair,  on  top  of  a  wagon-load  of  tools  and 
kitchen  utensils,  and  preceded  by  his  boys,  driving  a  troop 
of  ten  or  fifteen  cows.  As  he  was  one  I  had  always 
chatted  with,  in  passing,  and  had  grown  to  value  for  his 
good  sense  and  kindly  character,  I  inquired  into  his 
movements  with  some  interest.  He  was  going  (to  use 
his  own  phrase)  "twenty  miles  farther  back,  where  a 
man  could  afford  to  farm,  at  the  price  of  the  land."  His 
corn-fields  on  the  banks  of  the  Hudson  had  risen  in  value, 
as  probable  sites  for  ornamental  residences,  and  with  the 
difference  (between  two  hundred  dollars  the  fancy  acre, 
and  sixty  dollars  the  farming  acre)  in  his  pocket,  he  was 
transferring  his  labor  and  his  associations  to  a  new  soil 
and  neighborhood.  With  the  market  for  his  produce 
quite  as  handy  by  railroad,  he  was  some  four  or  five 
thousand  dollars  richer  in  capital,  and  only  a  loser  in 


46  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE  WILD. 

scenery  and  local  attachments.  A  Yankee's  pots  and 
kettles  will  almost  walk  away  on  their  own  legs,  with 
such  inducement. 

There  is  another  "  alluvial  deposit/'  however,  besides 
Taste  and  Wealth,  which  helps  to  drive  the  farmer  from 
the  banks  of  the  river.  The  steamboat  landings  occur 
ring  every  few  miles,  are  nests  of  bad  company,  and  con 
stant  temptations  to  the  idle  curiosity  of  laborers  and 
children.  It  is  a  gay  sight — at  least  contrasted  with 
plough  and  barn-yard — to  see  the  "  day  boat "  sweep  up 
with  twice  as  many  inhabitants  as  the  nearest  village ; 
crowds  of  city-dressed  people,  leaning  over  the  balus 
trades,  and  the  whole  a  gaily  painted  and  confusedly 
fascinating  spectacle  of  life  and  movement.  Then  the 
"  evening  boat/'  with  her  long  line  of  lights,  her  ringing 
bells,  and  the  magical  glide  with  which  she  comes 
through  the  darkness,  touches  the  wharf,  and  is  gone  ; 
the  perpetual  succession  of  freight-boats  ;  the  equipages 
from  the  surrounding  villages  ;  and  all  the  "  runners/7 
coachmen,  porters,  and  "loafers,"  who  abound  upon  the 
docks,  swarming  the  bar-rooms  in  the  intervals  of  arri 
vals,  contribute  to  keep  up  an  excitement,  within  reach 
of  which  a  farmer's  customary  reliances  are  made  vexa- 
tiously  uncertain.  He  would  scarce  need  more  than  this 
to  make  him  seek  a  different  neighborhood.  But  for 
once,  the  "  money  down  "  also  pays  virtue's  expenses,  and 


THE      FARM      AND      ITS      DOUBLE.  47 

it  is  not  surprising  that  the  migration  of  the  river  farmers 
to  both  cheaper  lands  and  a  more  moral  atmosphere,  is 
general  and  lively.  The  "  opening  clown  the  middle  "  of 
the  Empire  State's  robe  of  agriculture,  will  soon  be 
edged  with  velvet,  and,  for  its  common  cloth,  we  must 
look  to  the  sides  and  skirts,  broad  back  and  towering 
shoulders.  A  dass  who  can  afford  to  Let  the  trees  grow  is 
getting  possession  of  the  Hudson  ;  and  it  is  at  least  safe 
to  rejoice  in  this,  whatever  one  may  preach  as  to  the 
displacement  of  the  laboring  tiller  of  the  soil  by  the 
luxurious  idler.  With  the  bare  fields  fast  changing  into 
wooded  lawns,  the  rocky  wastes  into  groves,  the  angular 
farm-houses  into  shaded  villas,  and  the  naked  uplands 
into  waving  forests,  our  great  thoroughfare  will  soon  be 
seen  (as  it  has  not  been  for  many  years)  in  something 
like  its  natural  beauty.  It  takes  very  handsome  men 
and  mountains  to  look  well  bald. 

Yet  the  mover-back  from  the  banks  of  the  Hudson  soon 
finds,  probably,  that  he  has  sold  more  than  he  meant  to 
sell.  The  farm  that  belonged  to  his  thoughts  has  gone  with 
the  other  farm.  He  has  parted,  unintentionally,  with 
what  he  was  daily  in  the  habit  of  looking  for,  measuring 
time  by,  thinking  about,  and  finding  society  in — the  rail- 
trains  and  steamers,  schooners  and  barges,  sloops,  yachts 
and  lumber-rafts,  of  one  of  the  most  lively  thoroughfares 
in  the  world.  Stupidly  enough,  he  had  included  all  this 


48  LETTERS      FROM      I D  L  E  W I L  D  . 

in  the  "scenery" — the  mere  trees,  hills  and  running 
water,  of  which  he  expected  to  find  plenty  where  he  was 
going  !  But  a  mere  landscape — and  a  landscape  alive 
with  moving  objects  of  beauty  and  interest — are  very 
different  places  in  which  even  to  be  yourself  solitary. 

It  is  to  this  blindness  as  to  the  un-fenceiUe  property  in 
a  spot,  that  Idlewild  owes  its  name.  It  belonged  to  a 
valuable  farm  ;  but  it  was  a  side  of  it,  which,  from  being- 
little  more  than  a  craggy  ravine — the  bed  of  a  wayward 
torrent — had  always  been  left  in  complete  wilderness. 
When  I  first  fell  in  love  with  it,  and  thought  of  making  a 
home  amid  its  tangle  of  hemlocks,  my  first  inquiry  as  to 
its  price  was  met  with  the  disparaging  remark,  that  it 
was  of  little  value — "only  an  idle  wild' of  which  nothing 
could  ever  be  made."  And  that  description  of  it  stuck 
captivatingly  in  my  memory.  "Idle-wild!"  "  Idle-wild  !" 
But  let  me  describe  what  belongs  to  Idlewild,  besides  its 
acres  of  good-for-nothing  torrent  and  unharvest-able 
crags,  and  besides  the  mere  scenery  around  them. 

To  begin  with  a  trifling  convenience,  it  supplies  a  dock, 
gratis.  From  the  promontory  on  which  stands  my  cot 
tage,  I  see  five  miles  of  the  Hudson  River  Railroad,  and 
two  miles  of  the  Kewburgh  and  Erie — a  clock  rimmed 
round  with  a  mountain  horizon,  the  loveliest  of  landscapes 
for  a  face,  and  half-mile  streaks  of  smoke  for  the  fingers. 
Once  learn  the  startings  of  the  trains,  and  every  one  that 


FEATURES   OF  THE  LANDSCAPE.      49 

passes  announces  the  time  of  day.  The  smoke-fingers 
serve  also  as  a  barometer — more  or  less  white  and  dis 
tinct,  depressed  or  elevated,  in  proportion  to  the  damp 
ness  of  the  atmosphere.  It  is  something  of  a  luxury  also 
to  be  daily  astonished  ;  and  I  feel  no  beginning,  at  present, 
of  getting  used  to  seeing  a  rail-train  slide  along  the  side  of 
a  mountain — the  swift  smoke-tails  of  the  JSTewburgh  and 
Erie  cars  slicing  off  the  top  of  Skunnemunk  several  times 
a  day,  at  an  elevation  of  two  hundred  feet  above  the 
Hudson,  and  often,  when  there  is  a  mist  below  or  above 
it,  looking  more  like  a  meteor  shooting  along  the  face  of 
a  cloud,  than  a  mechanical  possibility  in  which  a  mortal 
may  take  passage  or  send  a  parcel.  To  have  these  swift 
trains  perpetually  flying  past,  one  on  each  side  of  the 
river,  and  meeting  at  right  angles  where  the  ferry-boat  is 
seen  continually  to  cross,  varies  a  man's  walk,  even  at  the 
tail  of  a  plough. 

But  the  two  railways,  though  the  most  wonderful  fea 
tures  of  the  movement  in  my  landscape,  are  the  least  beau 
tiful.  The  spread  of  the  river  above  the  pass  of  the 
Highlands  (upon  which  I  look  immediately  down),  might 
be  a  small  lake  of  four  or  five  miles  in  extent,  embosomed 
in  mountains.  This  would  be  fine  "  scenery  "  to  be  solitary 
amidst,  though  the  birds  and  the  tree-tops  were  the  only 
stirrers.  But  to  be  just  as  picturesquely  secluded,  as  to 
personal  remoteness,  and  still  see  the  lake  beneath  my 
3 


50  LETTERS      FROM     IDLEWILD. 

lawn  traversed  daily  by  a  hundred  craft  of  one  sort  and 
another — steamers,  tow-boats,  sloops,  rafts,  yachts, 
schooners  and  barges — makes,  as  I  said  before,  a  different 
thing  of  solitude.  I  presume  five  thousand  people,  at 
least,  pass  daily  under  my  library  window  ;  and  as  one 
looks  out  upon  the  crowded  cars  and  flotillas  which  bear 
such  multitudes  along,  it  does  not  require  poetry,  in  these 
days  of  animal  magnetism,  to  express  how  the  sense  of 
society  is  thus  satisfied.  A  man  mingles  in  a  crowd,  or 
goes  to  the  play,  to  satisfy  the  social  craving  which  is 
irresistible — but  he  need  not  speak  or  be  spoken  to,  to 
get  rid  of  his  lonely  feeling  altogether.  He  must  have  a 
certain  amount  of  human  life  and  motion  within  reach  of 
his  eye.  And,  just  how  near  or  distant  these  moving 
fellow-beings  must  needs  be,  to  magnetize  companionship 
into  the  air,  would  vary,  probably,  with  each  man's 
electric  circle.  Across  the  river  and  over  to  Skunne- 
inunk  is  near  enough  for  me. 


EVERGREE  NS.  51 


LETTER  VI. 

Evergreen  Independence  of  Seasons — Nature's  Landscape  Gardening — Weak 
ness  as  to  Reluctance  in  Planting  Trees. 

April  30, 1853. 

WE  are  not  particular  about  the  coming  of  spring,  at 
Idlewild.  It  is  impatiently  waited  for  among  shrub 
beries  and  fruit-trees,  and  on  gravel-walks  only  shaded  in 
summer.  But,  lose  yourself  (as  you  may)  in  our  water 
fall  wilderness,  and  you  would  not  know  April  from 
June.  It  is  a  little  seventy-acre  world  of  rocks,  foam- 
rapids,  and  pathless  woods,  the  ground  carpeted  with 
unchanging  mosses  and  ferns,  and  the  thousands  of  ever 
green  trees — hemlocks  and  cedars,  white  pines  and  yellow 
pines,  balsam  firs,  laurels  and  cypresses — in  such  majority 
that  falling  leaves  are  scarce  missed.  What  with  this, 
and  a  labyrinth  of  glen-depths  where  the  windy  gusts 
never  reach,  we  only  know  winter  by  the  snow — late 
autumn  and  early  spring  differing  little  from  summer,  or 
mainly  in  temperature  more  inspiriting. 

It  is,  perhaps,  additionally  local,  this  nine-month  sum 
mer  at  Idlewild— owing  partly,  that  is  to  say,  to  the  pre- 


52  LETTERS     FROM     IDLEWILD. 

cipitous  wall  of  mountains  which  partitions  us  off  from 
the  seaboard,  and  sends  the  east  wind  clean  over  our 
heads  without  touching,  so  that  the  Boston  flayed-alive- 
ishness*  is  no  part  of  our  climate — but  I  was  trying  to 
draw  a  picture,  which,  even  without  this,  might  be  use 
fully  suggestive.  An  out-of-doors  where  there  is  no 
windy  weather  and  no  naked  trees — a  fir-glen,  such  as 
may  be  found,  little  valued,  almost  anywhere  hereabouts 
— makes  a  home  for  an  invalid,  with  "the  north"  very 
materially  softened.  The  eye  needs  its  medicine.  Sur 
rounded  by  evergreen  woods,  we  look  out  from  our  cot 
tage  windows,  for  instance,  upon  perpetual  summer,  as  to 
foliage  ;  and  it  is  healing,  even  to  the  lungs,  in  Decem 
ber,  to  need  reminding,  half  the  time,  that  it  is  not  June. 
Half  the  time,  too,  it  is  (if  the  newspapers  are  to  be 
believed)  "remarkable  weather  for  the  season."  Two 
days  out  of  three,  in  our  usual  winters,  would  be  taken 
kindly  by  the  ripening  oranges  of  the  tropics.  Live  but 

*  This  local  experience  is,  perhaps,  worth  making  another  comment  upon. 
There  are  those  who  may  be  interested  to  know  that  there  is  a  mountain  wall, 
so  near  the  city  as  this,  under  shelter  of  which  the  sour  and  penetrating  East 
Wind  of  the  sea-board  is  never  felt.  It  was  the  knowledge  of  this,  by  the  emi 
nent  physician  whose  advice  first  brought  me  to  this  place,  which  induced  his 
successful  prescription.  I  have  passed  a  whole  winter  on  this  Highland  Ter 
race,  daily  on  horseback,  and  riding  constantly  over  its  ten-mile  surface,  with 
out  once  feeling  anything  like  the  depressing  and  searching  east  wind  so  poi- 
sonously  uncomfortable  at  Boston.  The  information  may  be  of  use  to  invalids. 


AN      EXPERIMENT.  53 

near  a  sheltered  fir-grove — where  the  sun  draws  the  per 
fume  from  the  resinous  bark,  and  the  air  is  unreached  by 
the  wind — and,  though  a  delicate  invalid,  you  may  pass 
half  your  January  noons  out  of  doors.  Yet  most  persons 
choose  exposed  situations  for  country  residences,  and 
surround  the  house  with  elms,  oaks,  and  maples — trees 
naked  half  the  year.  With  a  latitude  of  too  many  win 
try  months,  but  with  a  capricious  climate,  whose  summer 
days,  departed  by  the  almanac,  may  be,  any  morning, 
back  at  our  door,  it  is  surely  best,  if  possible,  to  be 
ready,  at  short  notice,  to  realize  them — to  let  it  look  as 
well  2^  fed  like  summer — to  see  verdure  and  breathe  per 
fume,  as  well  as  glow  with  the  warm  air  that  commonly 
keeps  perfume  and  verdure  company. 

I  am  making  an  experiment  at  Idlewild — seeing  how 
far  a  place  can  be  improved  by  originating  nothing — 
taking  advantage  only  of  what  Nature  has  already  done. 
I  began  by  setting  down  my  cottage  amid  an  old  wood, 
upon  a  site  otherwise  perhaps  second  best,  instead  of 
waiting  twenty  years  for  shade  upon  a  spot  with  a  better 
view.  With  groves  all  around  us,  and  a  half-mile  avenue 
of  hemlocks  extending  from  the  water's  edge  upon  the 
Hudson  to  the  gate  up  the  brook,  I  have  not  yet  planted 
a  single  tree.  We  go  to  them  so  much  easier  than 
they  come  to  us.  Here  and  there  it  begins  to  look 
rather  expensively  terraced — but  those  curious  levels,  in 


54  LETTERS      FROM      IDLEWILD. 

the  precipitous  sides  of  the  ravine,  were  Nature's  own 
spread  of  her  lap,  and  we  have  only  smoothed  down  her 
gown.  In  the  wildest  rock  chasms  of  our  torrent  brook, 
we  have,  now,  two  darkly-shaded  lakes — cascades  pour 
ing  into  them,  waterfalls  pouring  out  of  them — and  you 
would  scarce  believe  how  little  finishing  it  took  to  com 
plete  Nature's  intended  damming-up  of  the  approaching 
crags  at  the  outlets.  For  one  great  advantage,  a  road 
up  the  glen,  we  are  indebted  rather  to  accident — a 
former  proprietor  having  built  it  at  some  expense,  in 
a  project  to  quarry  slate — but,  upon  the  edges  of  a  track 
roughly  hewn  through  underbrush,  forty  years  ago,  there 
are  now  rows  of  noble  trees  which  look  like  large  invest 
ments  of  time  and  money.  Perched  on  a  hillside,  we  have 
a  fish-pond,  of  crystal  clearness,  which  you  would  also 
take  for  an  expensive  caprice,  done  with  lead  pipes  and 
much  round-about  digging  ;  and  that  was  a  natural 
spring,  of  singular  and  unfailing  abundance,  known  to  all 
the  vagrant  boys  of  the  neighborhood  as  the  coolest  and 
best  water  to  be  anywhere  found,  and  which  it  needed 
but  little  work  to  "  puddle  round  and  stone  up."  With 
a  tract  of  uneven  surface,  which  has  been  left  a  long  time 
idle  and  wild,  it  is  surprising  how  you  may  thus  need  to 
strike  but  the  thousandth  blow,  in  the  determination  to 
complete  only  what  Nature  has  struck  nine  hundred  and 
ninety-nine  at,  before  you.  You  get  such  large  effects 


A     FRANK      AVOWAL.  55 

with  so  little  labor — a  consideration,  where  a  shovel  at  a 
dollar  a  day  moves  dirt  so  slowly. 

I  said,  just  now,  that  I  had  not  yet  planted  a  single 
tree  at  Idlewild.  This  is  half  a  betrayal  of  a  weakness 
that  I  feel  growing  upon  me  ;  and,  having  been  reminded 
to-day  of  what  I  have  once  put  in  print  from  quite  an 
opposite  feeling,  I  may  as  well  make  a  clean  breast,  and 
so,  perhaps,  get  the  better  of  it.  In  our  current  of  life 
we  have  eddies  of  these  quiet  side-weaknesses — a  string 
of  them.  At  fourteen  we  begin  to  be  secretly  nervous 
lest  our  beard  should  be  belated.  Whiskers  pretty  well 
outlined,  there  awakens  an  unconfessed  wonder  and  indig 
nation  that  the  world  does  not  seem  ready  for  our 
particular  genius.  Soon  after,  we  are  mortified  that 
even  our  guardian  angel,  reading  our  hearts,  should 
know  how  hard  it  is  to  smile  with  contempt  because 
papas  do  not  think  us  "  a  good  match."  The  struggle  of 
life  comes  :  and,  with  the  current  swifter  and  deeper, 
there  is  an  interval,  perhaps,  when  the  eddies  of  secret 
weakness  find  no  slack-water  for  play.  But,  that  past, 
we  begin  to  be  sensitive  about  our  age  and  our  first  grey 
hairs  ;  aflfl  when  that  is  scarce  over,  there  comes  another 
feeling— the  weakness  that  I  speak  of — the  secret  reason 
(though  scarce  before  recognized  and  brought  fairly  to 
the  light)  why  I  have  been  two  years  moulding  Idlewild 
into  a  home,  and  have  not  yet  set  out  a  tree. 


56  LETTERS      FROM      IDLEWILD. 

We  dread  being  reminded  of  what  is  going  to  do  just  as 
well  without  us.  The  time  of  life  for  this  feeling  may  be 
sooner  or  later,  but  it  comes.  We  outlive  it— for  we  see 
old  men  very  fond  of  planting  trees.  But,  with  every 
willingness  to  look  forward — death  a  gate  to  which  we 
see  our  steps  turning,  and  still  go  tranquilly  on — the  look 
backward  has  its  pangs — pride-pangs — over  and  above 
the  partings  of  affection.  What  we  prize  and  admire 
that  will  not  miss  us — what  will  come  to  its  beauty  after 
we  are  gone — what  will  not  need  us  to  appreciate  or 
point  out  its  splendor,  but  will  be  looked  at  and  loved 
as  well  when  we  have  been  long  forgotten — of  this  we 
are  reminded,  oftener  and  more  bitterly  than  we  always 
like  to  own.  We  do  not  set  up  memorials  of  this  kind 
without  a  sigh.  To  plant  a  tree  is  to  do  this— its  growth 
slow,  its  maturity  delaying,  its  full  promise  far  off,  while 
we  are  loosening  hold,  conscious  of  uncertain  stay,  sure 
to  be  soon  gone  beyond  its  shading.  But  I  will  try 
to-morrow.  Trees  should  be  growing  here  and  there  at 
Idlewild— whether  or  not  I  shall  be  here  to  see  them  in 
their  beauty. 


FACILITY      OF      MIGRATING.  51 


LETTER    VII. 

Earlier  City  Migration  to  the  Country  than  usual — Peculiar  Dignity-plant — Object 
of  Country  Farmers  in  taking  City  Boarders  for  the  Summer — Suggestion  as  to 
City  and  Country  Exchange  of  Hospitality. 

May  7, 1853. 

OUR  nominal  summer,  in  this  region,  dates  from  the 
period  when  the  farm-houses  receive  their  city  boarders 
for  the  season  ;  and  I  find,  by  conversation  with 
my  neighbors  on  the  road,  that  it  is  to  commence  this 
year  a  month  earlier  than  usual.  The  engagement  of 
rooms  from  the  first  of  June,  instead  of  the  first  of  July, 
is  so  general  as  to  be  quite  the  leading  topic  of  interest 
and  curiosity.  It  is  attributed  partly  to  the  rise  of 
provisions  and  other  expenses  of  living  in  New  York, 
and  partly  to  the  growing  taste  of  mingling  country  and 
city  life.  Differing  from  England  in  nothing  so  much  as 
in  the  less -value  we  set  upon  the  individual  home,  there  is 
a  wonderful  proportion  of  our  respectable  families  who 
pass  the  winter  at  hotels  and  boarding-houses,  and  to 
whom  rural  migration  is  an  easy  and  agreeable  change. 
They  have  no  residence  to  lock  up  or  let.  They  strike 


58         LETTERS   FROM   IDLEWILD. 

tent  as  willingly  as  the  Arab,  whose  nomadic  taste  the 
American  seems  to  share.  From  pavements  and  operas, 
omnibuses  and  heated  rooms,  the  change  to  green  fields, 
quiet,  and  fresh  air,  is  but  the  paying  a  bill  and  packing  a 
trunk. 

But  in  this  neighborhood — this  Highland  Terrace,  ten 
miles  square,  lying  in  a  half-bowl  of  mountains — "  taking 
boarders "  is  not  exactly  what  it  is  elsewhere.  The 
difference  is  worth  explaining — for  it  shows  that  dignity 
is  a  plant  which  may  grow  differently  in  one  place 
and  another.  I  have  already  complimented  the  locality, 
for  its  being  so  chance-formed,  geographically,  as  to 
be  entirely  exempt  from  the  sour  east  wind.  Downing 
compliments  it,  in  his  horticultural  writings,  because  the 
arlor  mice,  (the  flat  cedar),  the  most  rare  and  curious  of 
evergreens,  is  here  the  commonest  shrub  by  the  wayside. 
As  the  only  climate  where  thrives  a  peculiar  dignity- 
plant — the  different  feeling  I  speak  of,  as  to  taking 
boarders— it  is,  I  think,  equally  to  be  complimented. 

"  Board"  and  "hospitality"  differ,  here,  in  nothing  but 
the  equivalent.  For  the  entertainment  given  by  our 
farmers  to  families  from  the  city,  during  the  summer 
months  money  is  taken,  instead  of  the  usual  return  of  similar 
hospitality,  or  the  incurring  of  a  debt  of  civility.  In  all 
other  respects,  it  is  aii  interchange  of  advantages  between 
equals  in  social  rank.  The  charges  for  board  are  very 


"MONEY    NO    OBJECT."  59 

moderate — pecuniary  profit  not  being  the  acknowledged 
or  main  inducement  on  the  farmer's  part.  He  does 
it,  ostensibly  and  allowedly,  to  give  his  family  the  advan 
tage  of  more  extended  intercourse,  to  see  the  world 
near-to,  to  dispose  of  his  superfluities,  and  receive  super 
fluities  in  return — to  furnish  fresh  air,  beautiful  scenery, 
fruits,  flowers,  and  cordial  welcome,  without  charge,  and 
take  for  equivalent,  such  new  notions  of  dress,  views  of 
passing  topics,  and  observations  of  city  manners  and 
character,  as  may  be  gathered  from  the  entertainment  of 
city  society  under  his  own  roof.  For  the  greater  expense 
it  is  to  one  party  than  to  the  other,  in  the  carrying  out  of 
this  agreeable  interchange,  a  small  rectifier  is  thrown  in, 
in  the  shape  of  a  bill. 

In  o.ther  parts  of  the  world — perhaps  it  will  be  granted 
— the  taking  of  boarders,  in  some  greater  or  less  degree, 
involves  the  personal  dignity  and  position.  It  is  under 
stood  usually,  as  an  admission  of  "  reduced  circumstances." 
The  host  and  hostess  preside  at  table  rather  to  attend  to  the 
wants  of  those  who  sit  with  them  than  to  share  the  meal. 
They  are  not  included  in  the  daily  arrangements  for 
amusement,  do  not  enter  a  guest's  room  without  some 
more  definite  reason  than  to  lounge  or  chat,  would  not 
venture  to  nick-name  or  be  playfully  familiar,  and,  in  all 
respects,,  preserve  those  formalities  of  language  and  man 
ner  which  imply  a  barrier  not  to  be  overstepped. 


60  LETTERS      FROM      IDLEWILD. 

That  all  this  is  very  different,  in  the  Highlands  between 
West  Point  and  Newburgh,  any  one  who  has  passed  a 
summer  here  will  readily  admit.  The  families  that  receive 
from  ten  to  thirty  boarders  are  among  the  most  respect 
able  in  the  neighborhood — farmers  who  do  not,  confess 
edly  (nor  probably  in  fact),  depend  materially  on  taking 
boarders  for  a  livelihood.  The  common  price,  indeed, 
would  hardly  be  thought  to  clear  expenses,  if  time  and 
rent  were  taken  into  the  account.  But,  while  no  pains 
are  spared  to  make  the  visiters  happy  and  comfortable, 
it  is  done  with  the  joyous  and  cheerful  stimulus  of  hospi 
tality — the  first  comings  in  spring  looked  forward  to  with 
eager  pleasure  ;  the  parting  adieu  in  autumn  received  with 
whatever  friendly  regret  the  guest's  character  and  man 
ners  may  have  inspired.  In  the  arrangements  for  excur 
sions,  in  walks  and  drives,  the  family  is  as  much  included 
as  their  own  wishes  and  circumstances  of  mutual  conve 
nience  would  naturally  bring  about.  At  table  and  in  the 
parlor,  in  doors  and  out  of  doors,  there  is  as  much  social 
equality  as  between  the  boarders  themselves.  In  the 
society  of  the  country  around,  it  is  rather  an  addition  to 
the  dignity  than  otherwise,  to  take  boarders  in  the  sum 
mer — showing  competency  to  entertain  and  accommodate, 
and  implying,  of  course,  a  polish  from  intercourse  with 
strangers. 

Now,  this  really  seems  to  me,  I  must  say,  a  social 


A     SUGGESTION.  61 

novelty  worth  transplanting  and  propagating — worth  copy 
ing,  even  in  the  city.  How  many  families  there  are  in 
New  York  who  have  house-room  to  spare,  and  who,  if 
their  dignity  and  position  were  not  involved  or  lessened, 
would  find  both  profit  and  pleasure  in  opening  their  doors 
to  "  boarders  I"  They  might  receive  only  such  as  came 
properly  introduced  or  recommended.  The  chances  of 
agreeable  friends  and  "  good  society"  might  be  as  fair  as 
in  the  ordinary  course  of  forming  acquaintances.  House 
and  furniture  already  provided,  as  in  country  board,  there 
would  be  a  profit  at  half  the  price  charged  at  hotels. 
Why,  New  York  is  a  wilderness  of  unoccupied  attention 
and  unoccupied  apartments,  on  which  pride  alone  turns 
the  key.  Yet,  if  the  hospitality  for  money  were  a  little 
too  startling  at  first,  how  many  independent  families  there 
are  who  have  country  houses,  between  whom  and  those 
who  have  city  houses  hospitality  might  be  exchanged — 
three  months  of  summer  board  for  three  months  of  winter 
— and  no  pride  hurt,  but  health,  pocket,  and  love  of 
change  materially  and  reciprocally  accommodated  ! 


LETTERS     FROM     IDLEWILD. 


LETTER  VIII. 

Ownership  in  Nature  worth  Realizing — Thumb-and-finger  Nationality  of  Yan 
kees—United  Experience  of  Many,  as  expressed  in  a  Common-minded  Man's 
Better  Knowledge — Lack  of  Expression  and  Variety  in  Gates — Pig-tight  Gates. 

May  14, 1S53. 

SPRING  is  a  beautiful  piece  of  work;  and  not  to  be  in 
the  country  to  see  it  done,  is  the  not  realizing  what 
glorious  masters  we  are,  and  how  cheerfully,  minutely, 
and  unflaggingly  the  fair  fingers  of  the  Season  broider 
the  world  for  us.  Each  April  morning,  to  drop  the  reins 
upon  the  neck  of  your  horse,  and  look,  charmed,  around, 
seeing  that  Nature  did  not  go  to  bed,  used  up  and  tired, 
the  night  before,  as  you  did,  but  has  been  industriously 
busy  upon  the  leaves  and  blossoms  while  you  were  asleep 
— so  much  more  advancedly  lovely  than  yesterday — is, 
somehow,  a  feeling  that  has  in  it  the  bliss  of  ownership. 
The  morning  seems  made  for  you.  The  fields  and  sky 
seem  your  roof  and  grounds.  The  air  and  sunshine, 
fresh  colors  and  changing  light — all  new,  and  not  a 
second-hand  thing  to  be  seen — nothing  to  be  cupboarded 
and  kept  over  for  to-morrow,  or  for  another  guest — gives 


VANDALISM.  63 

a  delicious  consciousness  of  being  the  first  to  be  waited 
on,  the  one  it  was  all  made  and  meant  for.  A  city  April, 
in  comparison,  is  a  thing  potted  and  pickled,  and  retailed 
to  other  customers  as  well. 

And — speaking  of  green  leaves — I  have  been  vexing 
myself  to-day  over  a  thumb-and-finger  nationality  that  we 
have.  The  Irish  laborers,  at  work  upon  our  cottage 
grounds,  during  the  earlier  season,  have  gone  to  and  fro, 
without  damage,  intentional  or  unintentional,  to  what 
did  not  belong  to  them.  They  respect  one's  property  in 
a  tree  as  well  as  in  a  wall  or  a  door.  But,  with  the 
opening  season,  the  mechanics — Americans,  of  course — 
have  resumed  their  labors  on  the  unfinished  building ;  and 
the  marks  of  their  passings  in  and  out  are  very  different. 
They  board  among  our  neighbors  around,  and  either 
way  from  the  public  road,  on  the  river  or  the  village 
side,  the  approach  is  through  a  long  avenue  of  fir-trees. 
You  may  track  them  (seeing  any  day  whether  they  have 
gone  to  dinner  or  not)  by  the  broken  twigs  of  fresh-green 
tassels  upon  the  ground.  They  never  pass  near  one  of 
my  beautiful  hemlocks  or  cedars  without  refreshing  the 
memory  of  their  American  thumb  and  finger  as  to  its 
being  a  free  country — breaking  off  a  branch,  slapping  it 
once  or  twice  against  the  leg  as  they  walk  along,  and 
throwing  it  away.  If  it  were  grass,  and  only  missed  in 
the  crop — or  if  their  "  bosses  "  milked  them  when  they 


64  LETTERS      FROM      IDLEWILD. 

got  home — I  should  say  nothing.  A  trespass  on  pasture 
at  least  benefits  the  owner  of  the  cow.  But  the  dis 
figuring  of  trees,  whose  every  graceful  spray,  from  the 
ground  up,  is  part  of  an  outline  of  proportion — destroying 
what  nothing  can  restore,  from  a  mere  wanton  non- 
recognition  of  any  man's  property  in  more  than  the  fuel 
of  a  tree — is  a  thumb-and-finger  Fourth  of  July  which  I 
must  venture  to  wish  somewhat  abated.  The  young 
gentlemen,  of  course,  intended  no  special  annoyance  to 
me.  I  would  have  spoken  to  them  on  the  subject,  but 
they  would  have  understood  it  as  an  economy  of  fire 
wood.  The  liberty  they  take  is  part  of  a  national  habit 
of  mind.  It  is  a  pimple  on  the  nose  of  the  Republic, 
which  must  be  reached  by  physicking  through  public 
opinion — not  so  rudely  picked  by  any  one  individual  as 
to  make  a  pock-park  memorial  of  his  name. 

****** 
I  daily  acquire  respect  for  an  uneducated  person's 
better  knowledge  of  some  things.  In  almost  any  practi 
cal  matter,  it  is  a  great  saving  of  time  to  go  first,  and  get 
a  common-minded  man's  view  of  it.  I  wasted  a  good 
deal  of  thought  and  contrivance,  lately,  even  on  a  matter 
of  taste,  by  neglecting  my  usual  first  reference  to  this  two- 
legged  dictionary.  I  had  been  troubled  about  a  gate. 
Architectural  literature,  somehow,  seems  strangely  behind 
hand  and  benighted  on  this  subject,  or  perhaps  there  is 


THE     ARCHITECTURE     OF     GATES.  65 

some  work  which  treats  of  it  with  more  particularity,  and 
which  I  have  not  fallen  in  with — only  I  see  no  gates  on 
the  road,  or  in  landscape  embellishments,  which  would 
indicate  the  existence  of  such  better  authority.  There  is 
no  variety  of  appropriateness  in  them.  It  seems  to  me 
that  a  gate  should  not  only  be  absolutely  convenient,  but 
it  should  tell  the  story  of  what  it  leads  to — and  tell  it 
modestly,  like  a  place's  speaking  of  itself  to  the  passer-by. 
Gentlemen's  gates  in  our  country  are  very  apt  to  brag. 
There  is  not  near  so  much  meat  in  the  kitchen,  or  wine  in 
the  cellar,  as  they  talk  of.  But  there  is,  besides,  an 
individualism  wanting,  in  the  construction  of  gates.  We 
might  well  copy  Nature.  The  expression  of  the  mouth — 
Nature's  gate  to  the  stomach — grows  out  of  the  charac 
ter.  Architecture  should  do  the  same  thing — be  able  to 
furnish  a  man  a  plan  for  a  gate  to  his  house,  on  his  send 
ing  a  daguerreotype  of  himself.  But,  while  there  are 
thousands  of  kinds  of  people,  there  are  only  two  or  three 
kinds  of  gates — a  poverty  of  adaptedness,  which,  as  I  said 
before,  is  behind  the  omnificent  age  we  live  in. 

I  am  straying  from  my  point,  however — having  started 
only  to  speak  of  a  working-man's  better  knowledge  than 
mine,  as  to  convenience  in  a  gate.  I  had  taken  pencil  and 
paper  to  bed  (with  a  cough  which  keeps  me  sitting  upright 
half  the  night,  and  which  I  turn  to  account  by  working  as 
a  cough-power  to  turn  a  waking-wheel  on  any  subject  that 


66         LETTERS  FROM  IDLEWILD. 

perplexes  me) — and  had  spent  hours  in  the  combination 
of  lines  and  curves  to  express  what  I  wanted  the  entrance 
to  my  cottage  to  say.  An  autobiography  that  would  latch 
and  swing  upon  a  hinge,  was  the  amount  of  it — and  I 
soon  found  that  it  was  a  kind  of  rehearsal  of  a  grave 
stone,  that  would  require  more  study  than  I  had  thought 
for — but  I  went  to  sleep  at  last,  over  one  that  seemed 
tolerably  successful.  It  looked  well  by  the  cool  light  of 
the  next  morning;  and,  making  a  clean  drawing  of  it,  I 
walked  down  into  the  glen  and  showed  it  to  a  laboring 
man  by  whose  opinions  I  usually  take  the  measure  of  my 
own.  "  Yes,  sir,"  said  he,  after  looking  at  it  a  moment, 
"  but  it  isn't  pig-tight  /"  I  had  quite  forgotten  that  it  was 
to  keep  out  pigs  as  well  as  let  in  friends.  It  was  too  open 
at  the  bottom.  The  beauty  of  my  frame-work — as  long  as 
pigs  run  loose — would  be  misplaced  on  a  public  highway. 
Of  course  I  took  back  what  I  had  thought  disparag 
ingly  of  other  people's  gates.  They  may  have  had 
reasons — pig-tight  reasons  of  convenience — for  doing  as 
everybody  else  did.  I  gave  up  the  idea  of  letting  my 
own  gate  tell  any  particular  story,  and  applied  to  the 
architect  who  built  my  house,  for  a  plan  of  one.  He 
drew  it,  as  he  does  everything,  well — but  it  does  not  look 
at  all  as  if  it  led  to  me.  There  it  stands,  however,  lead 
ing  to  Idlewild.  Friends  will  understand  where  it 
promises  too  much. 


A     GOOD      INVESTMENT.  67 


LETTER   IX. 

Private  Performance  of  Thunder-storms — Nature's  Sundays — Marriage  of  Two 
Brooks — Funnychild's  Deserted  Bed. 

May  21, 1853. 

QUEEN  VICTORIA  has  private  theatricals  at  Windsor — 
but  I  have  a  private  performance  of  storms  at  Idlewild 
better  worth  coming  to  see.  These  players  of  Nature 
thunder  over  my  two  dams  in  the  ravine,  for  twenty-four 
hours  after  pouring  their  deluges  upon  the  mountains ; 
and  water,  foaming  down  through  sunshine,  and  listened 
to  without  need  of  an  umbrella,  is  as  much  more  charm 
ing  than  when  performing  where  previously  heard  and 
seen,  as  a  play  is  made  more  charming  by  the  sunshine 
and  privilege  of  a  queen's  presence. 

Nature,  like  love,  costs  money  to  appropriate  and 
make  the  most  of ;  but  I  was  musing,  to-day — as  I  stood 
looking  at  the  swollen  sheet  of  last  night's  heavy  rain, 
plunging  over  the  closed-up  chasm  of  one  of  our  preci 
pices — on  the  difference  of  value  received  for  investments 
nominally  equal.  The  building  of  the  dam  which  changed 
those  rapids  into  a  waterfall  of  twenty  feet,  cost  from 


68  LETTERS      FROM      IDLEWILD. 

twenty  to  thirty  dollars — the  price  that  will  be  paid  for 
a  private  box,  next  winter,  to  see  Cerito  dance  the  Baya 
dere.  But  that  is  the  last  of  Cerito's  legs  for  that  money, 
and  here  is  my  waterfall,  as  lively  as  ever,  after  six 
months  of  dancing  day  and  night,  and  nothing  extra  to 
pay,  either,  for  the  "chorus  and  ballet"  added  to  the 
performance  by  every  thunder-storm  that  comes  along. 
The  cataract,  moreover,  after  its  twinkling  feet  have 
quivered  in  the  air,  comes  down  into  the  meadow  and 
gives  a  drink  to  my  horse  and  cow  (an  afterpiece  you 
will  not  get  from  Cerito) ;  and  I  go  to  see  it  when  I  like; 
•on  foot  or  on  horseback ;  in  the  morning  mood  of  hope, 
or  the  evening  mood  of  sadness  ;  with  friends,  or  without 
them ;  at  dawn,  or  by  moonlight;  all  winter  and  all  sum 
mer,  and  with  the  promise  of  the  same  performance  for  as 
many  more  winters  and  summers  as  come  round  to  Idle- 
wild  and  me.  A  private  cataract  for  a  lifetime,  or  a 
private  box  to  see  a  pair  of  legs  for  an  hour — both  per 
formers  dancing  to  music,  but  Niblo  and  Mature  the  two 
managers,  and  both  got  up  "with  no  regard  to  expense" 
— price  twenty  dollars  for  either.  What  would  a  newly- 
arrived  angel  think  of  a  world  where  these  two  money- 
worths  were  set  down  as  equal  ? 

But  the  morning  has  been,  in  many  ways,  one  of  inter 
est  to  me.  The  clearing  off,  after  last  night's  heavy 
thunder,  gave  us  a  sunrise  fit  for  Eden.  There  are  such 


WEDDING      OF     THE     WATERS.  69 

days — days  when  boys  should  be  let  out  of  school — the 
deliciousness  of  the  weather  amounting  to  a  Sabbath — 
and  this  has  been  one  of  them,  It  was  a  happiness  to 
live  only.  Mere  breathing  and  seeing  has  been  full  of 
surprises.  So  mw  seemed  the  world !  Everything  out 
of  doors  looked  irresistibly  bent  on  a  holiday — birds 
merrier,  leaves  fresher,  blossoms  gayer-colored,  sweet- 
smelling  plants  joyously  prodigal  of  their  fragrance.  In 
the  seasons  when  the  leaves  are  on  the  trees,  this  kind  of 
Sunday  of  Nature  comes  around  once  in  about  seven 
days,  I  have  observed,  though  not  with  the  exact  regu 
larity  of  the  week  in  the  almanac.  And  I  think,  too, 
that  one's  natural  spirits  instinctively  follow  this  same 
rotation — the  weary  and  cloudy  Saturday  of  the  soul 
coming  round,  followed  by  its  bright  Sunday  of  repose 
and  Monday  of  better  courage.  We  are  all  happy,  some 
times,  we  know  not  why.  May  we  not  oftenest  put  it 
down  to  this  inward  seventh  day's  rest,  and  renewal  of 
the  joy  of  existence,  keeping  time  with  Nature  ? 

To  marry  two  brooks  was  my  errand  out  of  doors  this 
beautiful  morning.  The  meadow-lawn,  two  hundred  feet 
below  our  cottage-windows,  is  the  junction-porch  of  two 
converging  glens — Idlewild  and  Home-shut — and  each  has 
its  brook,  brought  from  far-apart  sources,  but  joining 
lips  within  our  fence  upon  the  Hudson.  Both  glen-open 
ings  being  included  in  one  tangled  domain,  the  road  out, 


TO         LETTERS   FROM   IDLEWILD. 

towards  Newburgh,  makes  a  bend  around  the  meadow, 
crossing  below  the  projecting  promontories  of  the  two  ; 
and,  as  we  must  needs,  of  course,  traverse  their  two 
streams,  it  was  desirable  to  bring  them  a  little  sooner 
together,  and  span  their  united  waters  with  one  bridge. 
It  required  some  digging  and  damming — Funny  child  (the 
other  brook),  after  all  manner  of  noisy  vagaries  in  its 
own  glen,  coming  out  to  coquet  capriciously  with  the 
swells  of  the  meadow,  and  shieing  Idlewild  just  where 
Nature  intended  they  should  meet  to  part  no  more — but 
we  made  the  new  bed  some  days  ago,  and  only  waited  for 
a  thunder-storm,  it  being  an  object  to  remove  the  barrier 
just  when  the  swollen  flood  might  give  a  more  natural 
turn  to  their  meeting.  I  should  mention  that  Home-shut, 
though  directly  opposite  my  study  window,  is  a  glen  so 
intricately  out  of  the  way  that  no  chance  foot  would  ever 
cross  it  ;  and,  from  its  close-wooded  entrance  of  hemlocks, 
the  demure  stream,  so  sunny  and  merry  the  moment  after, 
comes  out  like  a  veiled  nun  out  of  the  dark  porch  of  a 
cathedral — Funnychild  being  also  a  rivulet  of  capricious 
stay,  and  disappearing  (gone  to  the  springs,  perhaps), 
for  two  months  of  the  year. 

But  we  brought  the  two  together — breaking  down  the 
barrier — with  the  startling  celerity  that  makes  one  gasp 
at  most  weddings — though,  from  the  way  they  took  to 
each  other's  bosoms,  you  would  have  thought  they  had 


THE    DESERTED     BED.  71 

never  been  anywhere  else.  The  long  bother  of  onr  pre 
parations,  indeed,  seems  to  have  been  time  wasted.  Away 
they  went,  along  Idlewild's  every-day  track,  astonishing 
the  old  trees,  no  doubt,  with  the  freer  fingering  of  the  banks 
by  the  rising  ripples,  but  making  everything  look  brighter 
and  fresher.  It  will  be  a  happy  union,  I  think.  Idle- 
wild  staying  all  the  year,  Funny  child  will  not  be  so  much 
missed  in  her  summer  absences.  Only  her  deserted  bed 
looks  a  little  melancholy — but  that  we  must  cover  and 
forget.  I  shall  remember  this  glorious  morning  and  its 
pretty  bridal,  I  am  sure,  as  long  as  I  haunt  hereabouts. 


12  LETTERS     FROM     IDLE WILD. 


LETTER    X. 

Making  a  Shelf-road— Character  shown  in  Wall-laying— By-the-Day  and  By- 
the-Job — English  Literalness  and  Yankee  "  Gumption." 

May  23,  1853. 

IN  the  making  of  a  shelf-road  around  one  of  the  preci 
pices  of  Idlewild  (something  like  the  way  to  a  hanging- 
bird's  nest  when  we  began,  but,  at  present,  the  winding 
and  easy  access  to  the  cottage  from  the  Newburgh  side) 
— we  have  had  a  larger  amount  of  wall-laying  than  has 
entered  into  my  previous  out-door  experience ;  and  I  have 
taken  a  lesson  in  it,  of  which,  perhaps,  I  can  say  an 
instructive  word  or  so.  My  friend,  the  builder,  will  not 
take  the  alarm,  I  hope.  I  would  not  rashly  invade  his 
art  and  mystery.  I  refer,  not  to  mason-work  proper — 
such  as  is  done  with  trowel  and  hammer,  plumb-line  and 
spirit-level — but  to  such  laying  up  of  loose  stones  by  the 
hand  as  is  done  for  common  day  wages,  though  usually  by 
the  smarter  class  of  laboring  men. 

My  study  of  the  matter  was  by  way  of  understanding 
the  preferences  of  two  of  my  "  hands "  who  seemed 
equally  industrious — one  wishing  to  work  by  the  day, 


A     LESSON    IN     WALL-LAYING.  73 

however,  and  the  other  to  be  paid  by  the  rood.  As  they 
were  both  old  at  the  business,  I  thought  it  must  be  rather 
a  difference  of  natural  character  than  of  skill  or  profit- 
in  either  case,  a  difference  worth  understanding— and,  as 
the  weather  was  of  the  kind  that  throws  us  upon  our 
selves  for  amusement,  I  put  on  my  mittens,  and,  as  the 
-farmers  say,  "  took  hold  "  with  my  men. 

Our  way,  that  morning,  lay  through  a  group  of  large 
hemlocks  ;  and,  by  the  inexorable  level  of  carriage-road 
grading,  the  noblest  tree  was  undermined  on  the  lower 
side.  To  soothe  the  old  monarch — build  a  wall  that  would 
hold  up  the  fresh  earth  once  more  around  the  exposed 
roots — I  took  for  my  first  experiment  at  stone-laying.  It 
may  not  deepen  the  shade  of  the  old  tree,  perhaps,  to 
have  done  this  myself  ;  but  I  shall  enjoy  it  more  from 
having  made  sure  of  my  welcome  to  it. 

One  is  a  better  judge  of  most  work  by  having  had 
some  little  apprenticeship  at  it,  and,  by  what  I  found  diffi 
cult  or  easy  in  my  own  handling  of  the  material,  I  soon 
began  to  see  the  difference  between  my  friends  By-the-day 
and  By-the-job.  By-the-day  worked  much  the  hardest. 
He  lifted  two  or  three  stones  before  he  got  hold  of  the 
right  one,  held  this  between  his  knees  while  he  decided 
where  he  would  lay  it,  and  twisted  it  round  two  or  three 
times  after  he  had  got  it  in  place.  By-the-job  was  a  little 
longer  looking  at  the  fresh  cart-load  before  making  his 

4 


74  LETTERS      FROM      IDLEAVILD. 

selection,  but  the  taking  the  stone  up,  and  setting  it  in  its 
place,  was  usually  but  one  movement;  or,  he  gave  it  a 
turn  in  the  air  with  his  upward  lift,  brought  the  proper 
face  of  it  to  the  front  with  one  effort  of  mind  and  hand  ; 
and,  once  dropped  into  the  line  of  the  wall,  that  stone  was 
done  with.  If  it  was  not  a  fit  (though  it  generally  was), 
he  had  given  it  its  proportion  of  look  and  lift,  and  the 
next  one  must  remedy  the  defect — prop  or  overlay  it. 
He  built  as  good  wall,  on  the  whole,  as  the  other  man, 
seemed  to  be  taking  it  very  easy  in  comparison  to  the 
other's  hard  work,  and  got  on  a  trifle  faster.  The  differ 
ence,  I  saw,  consisted  in  thoroughly  deckling  on  every 
movement  before  it  was  made,  making  it  promptly,  and 
wasting  no  time  in  reconsiderings.  If  I  had  been  a 
casual  observer,  I  should  have  thought  By-the-day  was 
the  more  industrious  and  better  man.  By-the-job  would 
be  my  preference,  after  thus  seeing  them  closer. 

But  I  must  record  my  own  success  in  wall-laying — 
rounding  the  corners  of  the  rough-edged  apology  to  the 
old  hemlock.  "  He  who  exults  in  kunself,"  says  the  elder 
D'Israeli,  "  is  at  least  in  earnest;  but  he  who  refuses  to 
receive  that  praise  in  public  for  which  he  has  devoted  so 
much  labor  in  his  privacy,  is  not ;  for  he  is  compelled  to 
suppress  the  very  instinct  of  his  nature."  I  must  record, 
therefore,  that  I  was  praised  by  both  my  fellow-workmen 
— By-the-day  and  By-the-job.  They  agreed  it  was  a  neat 


A     SPADE NOT     A     SHOVEL.  t5 

piece  of  work.  And  (to  unbutton  a  little  more  towards 
where  it  touched  me)  it  is  very  delightful,  after  one's 
biography  is  written  (and  the  Rev.  Dr.  Cheever  wrote 
mine  twenty  years  agoj,  to  discover  that  one  has  a  talent 
that  has  been  entirely  overlooked — a  superiority  that,  in 
the  hurry  of  life,  has  lain  dormant  and  unsuspected.  My 
next  biographer  will  please  mention,  that,  with  proper 
advantages,  I  should  probably  have  been  a  first-rate  layer 
of  stone  wall. 

****** 
And — talking  of  working  men — I  was  amused,  a  few 
days  since,  with  a  contrast  as  to  treatment  of  obstacles, 
between  two  who  were  working  for  the  same  wages — 
worth  describing,  because  it  illustrates  with  some  truth 
the  difference  between  the  common  American  mind  and 
the  common  European.  We  were  preparing  to  throw 
our  bridge  across  Idlewild  Brook.  A  quiet  little  narrow- 
shouldered  American,  with  my  horse  hitched  to  a  drag, 
was  drawing  stone  for  the  road-way  beyond,  and  a  broad- 
shouldered  fellow  from  the  old  country  was  digging  earth 
to  fill  in.  As  I  stood  looking  on  for  a  moment  I  saw  a 
thrifty  little  cedar,  which  had  been  partly  uprooted  ;  and, 
requesting  the  digger  to  set  it  upright,  and  shovel  some 
dirt  around  it,  I  walked  on.  Returning  a  few  minutes 
after,  I  saw  my  cedar  erect  enough,  but  its  roots  still 
exposed.  "  Why  didn't  you  cover  it  with  dirt  ?"  I  asked. 


76         LETTERS   FROM   IDLE  WILD. 

"  Sure,  sir,"  said  sturdy  Great  Britain,  with  a  look  of 
most  honest  regret  that  he  had  not  been  able  to  oblige 
me,  "  you  told  me  to  shovel  it,  and  I  had  no  shovel,"  He 
was  working  with  a  spade  ! 

It  was  not  ten  minutes  after  this,  that  I  saw  my  little 
Yankee  dollar-a-day  unhitching  the  horse  from  the  drag. 
"  What  are  you  going  to  do  ?"  I  asked.  "  Why,  there 
is  no  more  stone  to  be  got  on  this  side,"  he  said,  "  and 
that  carpenter  don't  seem  to  be  coming  along  to  fix  this 
bridge.  I  thought  I'd  step  over  and  get  What's-his- 
name's  oxen  and  snake  them  timbers  up,  and  then  haul 
;em  across  with  a  block  and  tackle,  and  put  on  the  planks. 
I  could  draw  stone  from  the  other  side,  then."  Here  was 
a  quiet  proposal  to  do  what  I  looked  forward  to  as  quite 
a  problem,  even  for  a  professed  mechanic.  I  had  be 
spoken  a  carpenter  for  the  job,  three  weeks  before. 
There  stood  the  two  abutments  six  feet  high  and  twenty- 
five  feet  apart,  and  a  stream  swollen  by -a  freshet  and 

hardly  fordable  on  horseback  rushing  between  :  and  how 

• 

those  four  immovable  timbers,  thirty  feet  long,  were  to 
be  got  across,  without  machinery  and  scaffolding  to  span 
this  chasm  of  twenty-five  feet,  I  was  not  engineer  enough 
to  see.  It  was  among  the  "  chores  that  a  man  with  com 
mon  gumption  could  do,  easy  enough,"  however,  as  my 
little  friend  said,  and  it  was  done  the  next  morning,  with 
block  and  tackle,  rollers  and  levers — he  going  about  it  as 


YANKEE     INGENUITY. 


naturally  and  handily  as  if  he  had  been  a  bridge-builder 
by  profession.  There  being  no  higher  price,  for  day- 
labor  with  his  amount  of  "gumption"  and  day-labor 
such  as  the  other  marts,  who  could  not  conceive  how  a 
spade  might  be  used  for  a  shovel,  shows  how  common  a 
thing  ingenuity  is,  in  our  country,  and  how  characteristic 
of  a  Yankee  it  is  to  know  no  obstacle.  It  was  worth 
recording,  I  thought. 


LETTERS      FROM     IDLEWILD. 


LETTER  XI. 

Plank  Foot-bridge  over  the  Ravine— Its  Hidden  Location— Value  of  Old-man 
Friendships— Friend  S.— His  Visit  to  the  Bridge— His  Remembrance  of  Wash 
ington— Tobacco  Juice  on  Trees  to  Prevent  Horse-biting,  &c.,  &c., 

June  14, 1853. 

I  TOOK  a  jump,  to-day,  the  full  length  of  a  quiet  obser 
vation  made  to  me  by  a  venerable  old  man,  and  the  start 
ling  effect  upon  my  imagination  reminded  me  how  rarely 
we  do  this — how  seldom  we  are  eager  or  ready  for  a 
thought  that  is  presented  to  us,  willing  to  fly  where  it 
leads  the  way,  understand  fully  all  it  points  to,  and  see 
it  fairly  home  again  with  a  responsive  look  or  word  before 
half  forgetting  it.  Of  such  listening,  it  is  true,  every  soul 
liable  to  be  saved  is  not  equally  worthy,  even  in  a  repub 
lic  ;  but  my  friend's  remark  and  its  bearings  (like  much 
that  he  daily  looks  and  says),  are  worth  more  than  my 
best  attention  ;  and  I  will  venture  therefore  to  weave 
this  and  what  belongs  to  it,  into  my  chronicle  of  every 
day  happenings. 

Over  a  part  of  the  ravine  of  Idlewild  hitherto  almost 
wholly  inaccessible — a  winding  chasm  between  two  sheer 
precipices,  tumultuously  filled  below  with  a  succession  of 


THE     HIDDEN     PATH.  79 

foam-rapids — I  had  felled  a  couple  of  trees  ;  and,  with 
bits  of  rough  board,  formed  a  passable  bridge,  to  which, 
by  dint  of  pick-axe-ing,  I  had  ridged  a  pathway,  aslant 
down  the  face  of  the  rock.  As  no  strolling  foot  would 
ever  find  the  tangled  way  thither  without  a  guide,  I 
kept  it  for  such  visitors  as  I  thought  loved  nature  well 
enough  to  appreciate  its  covert  wildness  and  beauty  ; 
and,  for  the  eight  months  past,  this  flying  bridge  has  been 
my  finger-twist  of  free-masonry — the  secret  of  Idlewild, 
which  I  revealed  to  those  on  whom  my  heart  turned  no 
key.  So  enchanced  was  the  beauty  of  this  by  the  snows 
and  swollen  torrents  of  winter,  that  I  kept  a  pair  of  high- 
legged  water-proof  boots  (as  my  friend  Pike  of  the  Tri 
bune  will  remember),  in  which  I  embarked  any  beloved 
visitor  who  I  thought  should  see  it,  weather  or  no  ;  and 
though  these  were  not  many,  the  path  was  usually  trace 
able — a  kind  of  out-door  memorial  that  the  snows  of  the 
wintriest  storms  will  show  the  footprints  of  friends. 

My  neighbor  S would  have  been  one  of  the  first  to 

be  taken  to  a  haunt  thus  confidential  ;•  'but,  as  he  is 
eighty  years  of  age,  and  the  path  rather  a  giddy  one,  I 
had  deferred  it  till  some  bright  day  should  find  us 
together  near  the  spot.  I  may  mention  perhaps  (feel 
ing  to-day,  somehow,  as  if  the  world  were  to  be  trusted), 
that  he  is  one  of  those  Providential  gifts  in  a  country 
neighborhood,  an  old  man  at  leisure  for  a  friendship. 


80  LETTERS      FROM      IDLEWILD. 

This  is  a  luxury,  that,  through  life,  I  have  looked  for  and 
found  delightful.  Sunsets  and  sunrises  glow  alike.  The 
heart  is  warm  after  life's  day's-work  is  over,  as  before  it 
begins — after  the  harness  of  manhood  is  laid  off,  as  before 
it  is  put  on.  The  love  generally  felt  for  genial  and  kindly 
old  men,  with  their  unselfish  sympathies,  their  tried  judg 
ment,  and  their  half-mournful  tenderness  towards  those 
they  are  soon  to  leave,  has  not  been  enough  remembered 
in  poetry.  Their  calm  and  reliable  affection  is  the  Indian 
Summer  of  our  friendships. 

Strangers  will  tie  their  horses  to  the  trees  from  which 
I  can  least  spare  the  bark  they  eat  off  while  their  masters- 
are  rambling  about,  and  I  had  just  been  washing  the 
trunks  of  two  or  three  evergreens  with  tobacco-juice  (said 
to  be  a  six-months'  disguster  for  the  worst  kind  of  crib- 
biter),  when  neighbor  S ,  with  his  white  locks  flowing 

over  his  shoulders  and  his  calmly  genial  face  beaming 
from  under  his  broad-brimmed  hat,  drove  down  the  avenue 
— a  moving  picture  among  the  beautiful  cedars  and  hem 
locks  that  made  them  more  beautiful  than  before.  As  it 
was  one  of  those  inspiriting  days  of  May,  with  adoles 
cence  in  the  leaf-coaxing  breeze,  I  thought  it  a  good  time 
to  tax  my  friend's  knees  of  fourscore  with  a  scramble  to 
my  hidden  bridge,  the  path  to  which  opened  from  the 
thicket  near  by.  He  readily  assented.  We  tied  his 
horse  to  one  of  the  tobaccoed  cedars  (which  the  fine 


A     TABLEAU      VIVA  NT.  81 

animal,  a  splendid  bay,  opened  teeth  upon,  and  imme 
diately  backed  off  to  the  length  of  his  halter,  taking  an 
attitude  of  repugnance  in  which  we  found  him  on  our 
return),  and  then  successfully  made  our  winding  descent 
to  the  chasm. 

As  he  stood  upon  the  bridge,  the  old  man  was  the  un 
conscious  centre  of  a  tableau  vivant  of  great  beauty.  The 
rapids  came  down  in  four  or  five  foaming  leaps,  apparent 
ly  from  the  sky  above — flew,  in  a  glassy  and  glittering 
sheet,  beneath  his  feet — and,  with  another  twisted  foam- 
jump  below,  dashed  into  a  dark  lake  almost  walled  in  from 
the  reach  of  the  sun  at  noon.  There  is  not  a  spot  of 
wilder  loveliness  in  the  world  ;  and  the  venerable  figure 
and  presence  of  him  who  stood  silently  in  its  midst,  gave 
it  the  soul  for  which  the  landscape-painter  invents  figures, 
thus  centralizing  the  beauty  of  the  scene. 

"  I  was  here  once  before,"  said  the  old  man,  waking 
from  his  reverie.  "  It  was  when  I  was  sixteen  years  old. 
We  lived  in  the  village  above,  and  a  freshet  carried  away 
some  of  our  machinery.  I  remember  climbing  along  this 
wild  chasm  in  search  of  it." 

The  double  picture  thus  suddenly  presented  to  my  mind 
— that  same  person  standing  there  sixty-four  years  ago, 
a  slight  stripling  then  ;  and  now  a  white-haired  old  man, 
bent  and  venerable — chance-brought  to  the  same  spot 
once  more — his  memory  at  the  moment,  looking  at  the  scene 

4* 


82  LETTERS      FROM      I D  L  E  W I L  D . 

through  the  vista  of  a  life-time — was  a  strong  call  upon  the 
imagination.  The  two  currents — the  wild  one  beneath 
him,  and  the  life-blood  at  his  heart,  had  met  before  and 
parted  to  meet  again  after  so  long  a  lapse  of  years — each, 
meantime,  forgetful  of  the  other,  fulfilling  its  vicissitudes 
of  fulness  and  feebleness  ;  but  his  lessening  now  and  pre 
paring  to  change  its  channel  and  flow  through  eternity  ; 
while  the  other,  rejoicing  now  in  strength  undiminished, 
is  to  cease  when  the  world  shall  end — the  slender  thread 
of  that  old  man's  existence  to  outlast  the  thundering  tor 
rent  by  myriads  of  ages — what  a  parallel  for  the  fancy  to 
follow  through  !  Yet  the  half-musing  remark  which 
stirred  it  might  have  been  lost  upon  attention  carelessly 
given — might  have  been  drowned  in  the  noise  of  those 
deafening  waters.  What  interminable  aisles  of  thought 
and  instruction  thus  open  upon  our  commonest  pathway, 
the  dim  doors  of  which  we  scarce  notice  as  we  pass  ! 

Mr.  S is  my  next  neighbor  up  the  Valley  of  the 

Moodua  ;  and,  along  the  road  that  runs  between  his  house 
and  the  woods  of  Idlewild,  he  once  overtook  a  slow- 
pacing  horseman,  who,  with  bridle  dropped  before  him, 
was  lost  in  thought.  He  was  himself  a  small  boy,  going 
to  mill  with  a  bag  of  corn  ;  and,  as  his  horse  gradually 
outwalked  the  other,  he  had  full  leisure  to  study  the  looks 
of  the  slow  rider.  Boy  as  he  was,  the  face  and  mien  of 
that  fellow-traveller  on  the  same  common  road  made  an 


REMINISCENCE   OF   WASHINGTON.     83 

indelible  impression   on   Ms   memory.     It  was   General 

Washington,  then  making  the  house  which  Mr.  S now 

occupies,  his  head-quarters.  Forge  Hill,  as  it  was  called — 
the  smithy  of  the  army — was  just  in  the  rear,  and  the 
house  occupied  by  General  Lafayette  was  a  little  farther 
up  the  stream.  Beyond  the  hill,  stands  the  picturesque 
old  mansion  where  General  Knox  was,  for  some  time, 
quartered,  now  occupied  by  Mr.  Morton.  Our  neighbor 
hood  is,  historically,  most  interesting — Mr.  S 's  remin 
iscences  of  his  boyhood,  and  its  evcry-day  contact  with  the 
movers  in  that  great  drama,  are  so  simply  and  truthfully 
told  as  to  have  a  wonderful  reality.  His  description  of 
Washington,  as  he  appeared  to  his  boyish  eyes — (looked 
upon  with  a  certain  strange  awe  and  reverence,  he  says, 
by  the  inhabitants  and  people  around) — would  be  an 
invaluable  portrait  of  the  great  Father  of  his  Country,  if 
it  could  be  copied  from  those  gentler  tones  by  pen  or 
pencil.  The  gallery  of  memory  at  Idlewild  will  be  graced 
by  many  of  these  word-pictures,  sketched  by  this  venerable 
old  man — pictures  lasting  in  the  minds  that  receive  them, 
but  untransferable,  in  their  full  beauty,  to  others. 


84  LETTERS      FROM      IDLEWILD. 


LETTER    XII. 

Foliage  and  its  Wonders — Caprice  of  Tree-living — Auto-verdure    of  Posts — 
Hemlock,  the  Homestead  Emblem,  &c.,  &c. 

June  11,  1853. 

I  HAVE  hitherto  known  June  as  rather  a  belated  month 
— seldom  out  in  its  full  bulk  and  beauty  of  leaves  till  the 
second  or  third  week.  We  have  had  it  now,  in  what 
would  pass  for  its  sufficient  glory,  since  the  middle  of 
May.  As  it  was  to  decide  some  of  my  experiments  of 
taste,  I  have  watched  it  more  closely  than  usual,  and  its 
early  advent  was  particularly  welcome.  The  thinning  of 
groves  and  clearing  out  of  underbrush — work  at  which  I 
was  busy  for  a  great  part  of  the  winter — seemed  some 
times  to  have  impoverished  the  woodland  beyond  its 
power  to  rally.  It  is  hard  to  keep  up  one's  faith  in 
foliage,  during  its  absence.  The  bare  trees  looked  as  if  a 
miracle  alone  could  re-clothe  them  as  abundantly  as  they 
certainly  were  clothed  by  the  last  summer,  and  one's 
cuttings  and  loppings  seem  to  have  needlessly  lessened 
the  probability.  Who  ever  looked  through  the  scattered 
branches  of  a  tree  in  winter,  and  understood  how  it  could 


CAPRICE      OF      NATURE.  85 

be  so  close-leaved  in  June  as  to  be  the  mass  of  shadow 
that  it  becomes — impervious  to  sight,  almost  impervious 
to  sunshine  ?  Nature  is,  certainly,  wonderfully  prodigal 
in  her  fulfillings.  The  promise  of  spring  is  kept  beyond 
all  expectation — a  season  of  astonishments — morning  after 
morning — the  more  startling  from  its  contrast  with  the 
short-corning-dom  that  reigns  in  most  else.  One  hurries 
out  of  bed  at  daylight,  living  in  the  country  in  such  a 
season  as  this,  eager  to  see  what  changes  have  taken 
place  overnight  in  the  landscapes  growing  beautiful 
around. 

But  Nature  is  a  little  wilful  withal.  She  seems  deter 
mined  that  Idlewild  shall  stay  the  wilderness  that  she 
made  it — owing  no  tree,  at  least,  to  my  planting.  And, 
after  a  half-dozen  vain  attempts,  I  have  let  it  alone. 
There  are  trees  enough.  Some  of  them  do  not  stand 
quite  where  landscape  gardening  might  fancy.  But  I 
believe  I  will  keep  it  to  say,  that  Nature  had  her  own 
way  about  it  altogether.  Some  of  her  caprices  are 
curious.  In  laying  a  plank,  last  November,  from  the 
fork  of  a  willow  to  a  crag  on  the  other  side  of  our  torrent- 
brook,  I  sawed  off  a  limb  of  the  tree,  perhaps  thirty  feet 
long,  and  left  it  upon  the  rocks.  Strolling  through  the 
glen,  in  the  early  spring,  I  noticed  that  this  amputated 
branch  was  budding  from  one  extremity  to  the  other — 
touching  the  earth  nowhere,  but  drawing  moisture  from 


86          LETTERS   FROM  IDLEWILD. 

an  elbow-bend  in  one  of  the  branches  which  had  fallen 
across  a  tuft  of  moss  in  a  fissure  of  the  crag.  There 
were  my  hemlocks,  which,  with  men  and  oxen,  I  had 
transplanted,  roots  and  all,  dying  in  the  moist  and  genial 
bed  I  had  made  for  them  ;  and  here  was  this  stray  waif, 
that  nobody  asked  to  live,  and  with  no  reasonable  means 
of  living,  as  lively,  after  six  months,  as  the  tree  it  was 
cut  from  !  I  showed  it  to  Morris,  my  brother  quill,  the 
other  Sunday  that  he  was  here  ;  but,  though  he  is  a  man 
to  find  an  excuse  for  almost  any  perversity,  he  could  only 
shake  his  kindness-box  uncomprehendingly  over  this.  In 
some  cart-loads  of  chestnut  posts  I  find  the  same  auto- 
verdure  embedded  in  stone  wall,  with  only  one  end  stand 
ing  flat  on  the  surface  of  the  ground  ;  half  of  them  are  in 
full  leaf,  along  the  river-side,  at  this  hour !  Sap,  like 
love,  seems  "  bent  on  steering  with  its  cargo  to  consignees 
not  named  in  the  papers  for  that  voyage." 

With  this  fertilizing  May — the  best  mixed  succession 
of  rain  and  sunshine  for  many  a  year — the  deciduous  trees 
so  jumped  into  leaf,  and  were,  all  of  a  sudden,  so  prodi 
gally  massive  and  shady,  that  I  began  to  think  I  had 
over-valued  our  wilderness  of  firs,  declaring  Idlewild,  as  I 
did,  to  be  independent  of  changing  foliage  in  the  prepon 
derance  of  its  woods  of  evergreen.  The  maples  and 
chestnuts,  oaks,  dogwoods,  and  willows,  quite  smothered  us 
with  their  Spring-burst,  I  must  own.  But  June,  with  its 


THE      BEAUTY      OF      HEMLOCKS.  87 

new  dress  for  my  slighted  hemlocks,  has  brought  me 
round  again,  and  (till  taken  again  by  surprise,  at  least) 
I  shall  be  inconstant  no  more.  Hemlocks  are  our  pride 
at  Idlewild.  How  wonderfully  beautiful  they  are  now — 
every  finger-tip  of  their  outspread  palms  thimbled  with 
gold,  and  every  tree  looking  as  if  all  the  sunsets  that  had 
ever  been  steeped  into  its  top  were  oozing  out  of  it  in 
drops.  Of  all  Nature's  renewals,  I  think  this  is  the 
fairest.  The  old  foliage  forms  such  effective  contrast  for 
the  new.  The  child-blossom  and  its  predecessor  are 
heightening  graces,  each  to  the  other — neither  so  beauti 
ful  alone,  and  both  finding  room  enough  and  enjoying  the 
same  summer  together.  Parent  and  child  are  one  glory. 
The  home-tree  was  not  stripped  and  deserted  for  the  new 
comer.  Of  that  most  precious  of  our  wayside  religions — 
the  homestead-hallowing — it  seems  to  me  that  the  hem 
lock  should  be  the  chosen  emblem. 


LETTERS      FROM      IDLEWILD. 


LETTER  XIII. 

Noon  Visitors  to  Scenery— The  Bull-Frog  at  the  Gate— Inconvenient  Opening 
of  a  Spring— Frog  Curiosity  and  Intelligence— Process  of  Animal  Progres 
sion,  &c.,  &c. 

June  18,1853. 

I  LOXGED  to  invest  a  bull-frog  with  an  office  to-day. 
The  stone  he  sr,t  upon  should  have  been  my  porter's  lodge, 
and  he  should  have  explained,  to  a  carriage-load  of 
gentlemen  and  ladies,  that  Nature,  at  that  time  of  day, 
was  "not  dressed  to  receive  company."  Why,  it  was 
just  upon  noon  ! — and  there  drove  up  a  party  of  strangers, 
in  a  Newburgh  hack,  who  had  come  over  to  see  Idlewild. 
Not  a  shadow  on  the  landscape  !  Hillside  and  meadow, 
precipice  and  plain,  blanketed  alike  with  one  glare  of 
sunshine,  flat  and  reliefless.  Idlewild  was  there,  it  is  true, 
every  tree  and  every  rock  ;  and  so  is  "  Childe  Harold" 
in  a  pocket  dictionary — every  word  of  it.  And  the  poem 
may  be  appreciated  by  fumbling  the  dictionary  wherein 
are  all  its  words  that  might  be  put  together,  as  well  as 
scenery  by  being  visited  when  its  lights  and  shadows  are 
all  unlinked.  Nature  (does  everybody  know  it  or  not  ?) 
pours  out  her  champagne  of  beauty  twice  a  day — at 


A     REASON  ING      FROG.  89 

morning  and  evening — and  at  noon  it  is  stale.  Yet  how 
fashionably  timed  an  excursion  is — getting  away  comfort 
ably  an  hour  or  two  after  breakfast,  and  returning  to 
dinner — leaving  alone  all  the  dawn  and  sunset,  the  star 
light  and  moonlight,  to  enjoy  scenery  from  ten  till  two  ! 
*  #  *  #  *  *  * 

The  frog  I  was  in  company  with,  at  the  moment  when 
these  visitors  passed  in,  had  taken  refuge  from  the  mid 
day  sun,  by  squatting  directly  under  my  new  gate — the 
perpendicular  shadow  of  the  latch-beam  just  making  a 
square  coverlid  for  his  back.  The  gate  being  quite  an 
architectural  affair,  and  of  a  style  somewhat  beyond  my 
worldly  condition,  I  was  swallowing  the  inevitable  ^Esop 
of  finding  this  classic  emblem  of  over-ambitiousness  seated 
just  there — but  I  was  interested,  at  the  same  time,  in 
speculating  on  the  instincts  of  my  croaking  friend,  in 
connection  with  the  circumstances  which  had  evidently 
brought  him  to  the  spot.  He  was  on  a  visit  of  inquiry. 
A  phenomenon  had  occurred  which  had  excited  his 
curiosity.  I  knew  the  frog  well.  His  remarkable  size 
had  attracted  my  attention  early  in  the  spring  ;  and  as  I 
had  invariably  seen  him  on  passing  the  pool  at  the  side  of 
the  road,  thirty  or  forty  rods  below,  where  he  habitually 
resided,  I  could  not  well  be  mistaken  in  his  identity. 
The  event  which  had  brought  him  away  from  home  was 
curious  in  itself ;  though  I  do  not  know  that  I  should 


90  LETTERS      FROM     IDLEWILD. 

venture  to  describe  it  with  such  particularity  if  it  were 
not  for  the  grounds  it  furnishes  in  .Natural  History,  in 
support  of  the  "  progressive  theory."  This  frog  reasoned 
— and  is,  of  course,  on  his  way  to  down  with  his  thighs 
and  swing  his  arms  like  a  gentleman. 

In  shaping  the  entrance  to  Idle  wild  from  the  Newburgh 
side,  I  had  thought  it  worth  while,  at  some  cost  of 
digging,  to  go  in  behind  a  magnificent  cluster  of  fir- 
trees — not  only  because  the  main  gate  on  the  river  would 
be  thus  set  in  a  picturesque  frame  of  evergreens,  but  also 
because,  over  the  shoulder  of  the  hill,  the  road  would 
descend  into  a  grove,  old  and  beautiful,  giving  the  visitor 
and  his  horses  a  welcome  of  shade.  After  several  days' 
working  into  the  steep  sand  and  gravel — (a  dry  and 
obstinate  old  hill,  it  seemed  to  me,  to  be  part  of  a  planet 
that  moves  through  space  so  easily) — my  Irish  persuaders 
came  suddenly  to  a  stand-still.  The  slope  they  were 
pick-axe-ing  began  to  tremble  like  a  jelly.  A  little 
shovelling,  right  and  left,  and  the  quicksand  broadened 
and  grew  softer — water  began  to  run — the  dry  soil 
caved  in  from  above,  and  a  large  mass  of  liquid  earth 
commenced  a  slow  procession  down  hill.  We  had 
intercepted  an  abundant  water-course,  which  has  its 
natural  issue  on  the  other  side  of  the  road,  forty  or  fifty 
feet  below.  Nothing  could  be  more  agreeable,  of  course, 
than  a  hill  which  would  walk  away  of  its  own  accord — 


A     LAND-SLIDE.  91 

provided  it  went  in  the  right  direction.  But  my  destiny, 
in  all  matters  of  mere  dirt,  is  perversely  ordered.  Base 
things  have  the  charge  of  my  not  loving  the  world  too 
well.  My  charming  new  road  was,  in  one  night,  entirely 
choked  up  and  smothered  in  mud — a  new  wire  fence  un 
settled  and  sent  tumbling  down — gateway  obstructed, 
and  every  sign  of  no  end  to  it.  Patches  came  down,  as 
large  as  a  breakfast  room,  with  young  trees  all  standing, 
and  grass  growing — part  of  them,  too,  from  my  neigh 
bor's  lot,  across  the  line.  It  occurs  to  me,  as  I  write,  by 
the  way,  whether  I  should  have  put  my  neighbor's  trees 
in  the  pound,  for  trespass.  Or,  if  his  land  moves  over 
the  line  by  locomotion  of  its  own,  does  it  become  mine  ; 
or,  if  not,  is  he  bound  to  come  and  take  it  away  ?  There 
are  nice  questions  for  law,  in  these  land-slides. 

But — we  managed,  at  last,  to  get  the  better  of  our 
Water-wilful — decoying  its  flow  around  the  bend  of  the 
road  by  a  "  blind  ditch,"  and  walling  up  its  outlet  of 
quicksand  behind  a  solid  embankment.  It  is  a  fine 
"  capability,"  thrown  away — for,  issuing  from  the  over 
hanging  acclivity  just  within  the  gate,  its  plentiful  and 
bright  water  might  rain  over  the  lip  of  a  sculptured  vase 
— a  charming  first  feature  for  the  entrance  to  an  Italian 
villa,  or  to  a  cultivated  garden,  but  too  artificial  for  a 
rocky  wilderness  like  Idlewild.  I  have  given  it  a  sprig 
or  two  of  weeping  willow,  to  moisten  into  curtains  for 


92  LETTERS      FROM     IDLE  WILD. 

my  gate — (a  little  job  of  upholstery  which  a  running 
brook  takes  but  a  year  or  two  to  do) — and,  when  the 
pendent  branches  droop  luxuriously  enough  to  call  the 
attention  of  the  passer-by,  other  minds,  even  less  observ 
ing  and  inquiring  than  my  neighbor  the  bull-frog,  will 
wonder  at  signs  of  water  on  a  promontory  so  high  and 
dry. 

Yes— and  I  believe   Neighbor  B (bull-frog)  did 

observe  the  new  phenomenon  ;  and  did  wonder  ;  and  cer 
tainly  did  make  an  express  journey,  three  or  four  hundred 
yards  along  a  dry  and  un-arnphibious-able  road,  up  a  hill 
and  on  a  warm  day,  to  look  into  it,  for  his  own  merely 
intelligent  satisfaction.  He  crossed  from  my  gate  to  the 
new  mud-puddle  in  the  corner  (as  I  saw  him  do) — 
dropped  into  his  contemplative  angle  of  forty-five  degrees, 
and  sat  reflecting  in  the  very  centre  of  the  sloppy  ooze 
for  perhaps  half  an  hour  (as  I  thought  it  worth  while  to 
stop  and  see),  and,  returning  home  towards  evening  (as 
I  happened  to  be  there  to  mako  sure  of),  made  himself 
into  an  easy-chair  with  his  knees  high  up  and  his  stomach 
for  a  cushion  (as  no  other  gentleman  animal  of  my 
acquaintance  can),  and  sat  in  his  accustomed  place, 
among  his  lively  little  family  of  tadpoles,  probably  specu 
lating  (as  an  old  magazine  editor  might  do  over  Putnam), 
on  the  effect  this  higher  breakout  might  have,  in  inter 
cepting  the  flow  of  his  circulation.  It  was  a  wonderful 


PROGRESSION   A  LAW   OF   NATURE.     93 

new  issue,  but  it  might  be  a  more  elevated  tap  of  the 
supply,  for  his  puddle,  after  all  ! 

To  return  to  the  science  of  the  matter,  there  really 
seems  to  me  to  have  been,  here,  sufficient  proof  that  a 
frog  can  observe,  is  capable  of  curiosity,  and  will,  though 
driven  by  no  instinct  of  immediate  necessity,  take  pains 
to  be  better  informed  on  a  subject  that  interests  him. 
Why,  to  have  gone  thus  out  of  his  element,  and  by  such 
use  of  his  limbs  as  shows  them  to  the  least  advantage — 
ascend  a  dry  hill  where  probably  a  frog  was  never  seen 
before — visit  a  new  moisture-land,  and  return  the  same 
day — it  was  Columbus-y  !  I  cannot  shut  my  eyes  to  such 
proof  of  enterprise  and  intelligence  in  a  neighbor.  It 
cannot  be  that  reason  so  advanced  can  stop  there — or 
that  such  a  frog  is  not  on  his  way  to  become  a  man. 

Neighbor  B is,  in  my  opinion,  one  of  a  series — 

perhaps  the  " first  number"  of  an  angel — at  all  events,  as 
suggestive  of  progression*  as  many  a  man  that  votes  for 
President.  I  respect  him.  I  commend  him  to  the  notice 

*  It  is  in  the  structure  and  physical  development  of  the  frog,  by  the  way, 
that  we  have  the  most  encouraging  and  interesting  proof  of  progression  as  a 
law  of  Nature.  No  other  animal  has  such  wonderful  changes  in  his  actual  body 
and  in  a  single  stage  of  existence.  It  is  hard  not  to  be  sceptical  as  to  the  dis 
posal  of  a  monkey's  tail,  for  instance,  if  he  is  to  become  a  man  capable  of  salva 
tion,  or  as  to  the  changes  that  must  take  place  in  some  men  before  they  can  be 
any  way  passable  as  angels — yet  how  much  easier  it  is  to  conceive  what  im 
provements  may  take  place  in  the  worst  and  ugliest  of  us,  when  we  read  in 


94  LETTERS      FROM      IDLEWILD. 

of  visitors  to  Idlewild.  He  sits  upon  a  stone,  by  a  small 
pool  of  spring-water,  on  the  meadow-shore  of  the  Moodna, 
just  where  you  turn  Sloop-Hill,  and  get  a  first  view  of 
my  cottage  chimney.  He  dives  usually  towards  noon 
It  gets  too  warm.  But  he  seems  to  have  the  same  feel 
ings  as  I,  that  Idlewild  is  in  its  beauty  with  the  sun  h 
the  East  (the  meadows  and  slopes  velveted  with  dewy 
shadows),  and  you  would  scarce  fail  to  see  us  both, 

B and  me,  by  driving  that  way  an  hour  after  sunrise. 

I  should  like  to  compare  his  impression  of  Idlewild  with 

that  of  the  visitors  who  passed  us  both  by,  going  to  sec 

• 

it  at  noon ! 

Natural  History  that  "  the  tail  of  the  tadpole  is  gradually  absorbed?"    Thus 
says  science  : — 

"  The  young  frog,  which  is  called  a  tadpole,  is,  at  first,  furnished  with  a  long 
fleshy  tail,  and  a  small  horny  beak,  having  no  other  apparent  limbs  than 
little  fringes  on  the  sides  of  the  neck.  These  disappear  in  a  few  days,  and  the 
hind  feet  are  very  gradually  and  visibly  developed ;  the  fore  feet  are  also  deve 
loped,  but  under  the  skin,  through  which  they  subsequently  penetrate.  THE  TAIL 
is  GRADUALLY  ABSORBED.  The  beak  falls,  and  discloses  the  true  jaws,  which,  at 
first,  were  soft  and  concealed  beneath  the  skin.  The  eyes  which,  at  first, 
could  only  ~be  discerned  through  atransparent  spot  in  the  skin,  are  now 
visible  with  their  THREE  lids.  There  are  but  four  toes  to  the  anterior  feet ; 
the  hind  ones  frequently  exhibit  the  rudiment  of  a  sixth.  Tadpoles  reproduce 
their  limbs  when  cut  off." 

To  the  maimed,  the  deformed,  the  crippled,  the  amputated,  the  unlovely— this 
is  surely  an  analogy  with  comfort  in  it.  That  which  is  unheavenly  about  us,  is 
to  be  "  gradually  absorbed." 


A     POWEKFUL      INTEREST.  95 


LETTER    XIV. 

Canterbury  Rowdies— Pianos   and  Porkers— Unwelcome  Visitors— Penalty  of 
Pounding — A  Public  Benefactor. 

June  25,  1853. 

THE  corner  of  the  Highland  Terrace,  which  forms  our 
neighborhood  (a  cluster  of  three  rural  villages,  cut  off  by 
Moodna  Creek  and  its  toll-bridge  from  the  city-reach 
influences  of  Newburgh),  is  charmingly  primitive  and 
rural.  With  no  pine-apples  for  sale,  no  frequentation  by 
the  gentlemen  and  ladies,  who  make  twenty-four-hour 
excursions  from  New  York,  no  billiard- table  and  no  news 
paper,  it  is  an  eddy  of  still  life,  left  behind  in  unrippled 
simplicity  by  the  current  of  progress.  Delightfully  unaf 
fected  and  farmer-like  as  life  hereabouts  is,  however,  we 
have  a  class  of  rowdies — rowdies  with  a  twist  to  their  tails 

and  they  overrule  the  law  as  effectually  as  the  rowdies 

of  New  York,  and  by  the  same  sort  of  tacit  admission  in 
the  mind  of  the  public.  The  pig-interest  is  too  strong  to  be 
meddled  with. 

But  the  way  in  which  the  "higher  law"  is  openly 
claimed  for  these  rural  rowdies,  in  the  very  heart  of  our 


96  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE  WILD. 

pretty  village  of  Canterbury,  for  instance,  is  very  curious. 
Out  of  any  one  of  those  nice  white  houses  along  the 
street,  will  come  the  most  dainty-looking  young  ladies, 
fresh  from  tasty  parlors,  and  mammas  that  take  a  maga 
zine.  The  pretty  white  fence  incloses  a  little  garden, 
with  flower-beds,  edged  with  box,  rose-bushes,  and  lilacs. 
Door  bells,  or  brass  knockers,  of  course.  Inside  the  gate 
all  is  "genteel."  Outside  the  gate,  however — in  the 
street,  on  the  sidewalk — right  before  the  front  door,  and 
under  the  parlor  windows,  stands  the  family  pig-trough. 
The  family  pigs  have  the  run  of  the  village  during  the 
day,  and  at  night  and  morning  they  come  home  for  their 
own  particular  swill — eaten,  in  the  evening,  perhaps, 
while  the  piano  is  playing  on  the  other  side  of  the  pretty 
white  fence.  In  dry  weather,  when  there  is  no  bed  of 
mud  in  the  carriage-track,  in  the  centre  of  the  street,  the 
gentleman  pig  stretches  himself  across  the  sidewalk  to 
sleep ;  and,  on  your  way  to  the  post-office,  you  may  walk 
round  a  score  or  more,  or  take  the  middle  of  the  street. 
You  respect  pig.  You  see  pig.  You  smell  pig.  But  beau 
tiful  young  ladies  sit  in  the  windows,  just  over  the  fence. 
The  cottagers  in  the  country  around  would  be  less  par 
ticular,  of  course,  if  there  were  a  way  to  be  so,  than  the 
more  genteel  villagers,  but  the  pig-trough,  outside  the 
gate,  is  the  unvarying  feature.  And  these  gentlemen 
outlaws  know  the  country,  and  take  long  walks.  Leave 


THE    "LEGAL"    REMEDY.  9t 

a  bar  down,  or  let  your  visitors  from  curiosity  (as 
happens  to  me  every  day)  forget  to  shut  your  gate  as 
they  enter,  and  the  pigs  are  all  over.  They  rooted  up, 
for  me,  yesterday,  a  green  slope,  covered  with  laurels, 
upon  the  beauty  of  which  I  had  particularly  set  my  heart, 
cherishing  it  for  a  foreground  to  a  picture  some  artist  will 
paint  for  me — and  it  took  me  and  my  man  an  hour  to  get 
the  unpunishable  defacers  out  once  more  on  the  highway. 
They  get  in  at  night.  Here  and  there  one  climbs  a  wall 
like  a  clumsy  boy,  dragging  it  after  him  as  he  goes  over. 
The  religious  bearing  of  this  "  hard  trial "  is  perhaps  the 
only  one  that  can  be  safely  dwelt  upon.  One  does  not 
say  his  prayers  iiear  so  easily,  I  find,  after  driving  out 
pigs  morning  and  evening,  nor  begin  very  immediately 
again,  to  "  love  his  neighbor  as  himself," 

It  is  against  the  law,  everybody  knows,  for  pigs  to  be 
turned  loose  on  a  public  highway.  Any  one  of  my  daily 
trespassers  could  be  lawfully  driven  by  me  five  miles  to 
the  nearest  "pound" — I  could  then  lawfully  take  pains 
that  the  sheriff  gave  notice  to  the  owner  that  his  pig  was 
there — lawfully  see  that  the  poor  animal  was  kept  from 
starving  for  the  several  days  before  he  might  be  taken 
awav — lawfully  go  four  or  five  miles  to  attend  the  jus 
tice's  court  and  appear  as  prosecutor — lawfully  pay  my 
own  expenses  for  this  two  or  three  weeks  of  trouble, 
travel,  and  vexation — and  lawfully  make  an  enemy  for  life 
5 


98  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE WILD. 

of  the  owner  of  the  trespassing  swine,  who  would, 
perhaps,  have  a  dollar  of  fine  to  pay,  in  consequence  of 
my  persecution  of  him.  All  this  it  costs  to  follow  up  one 
trespass  by  one  pig.  Pig  endurance  costs  less. 

But  the  village  of  Newburgh,  only  four  miles  from  us, 
has  outlived  this  stage  of  progress.  Pig-vagrancy  has 
been  put  down  in  its  beautiful  streets— owing,  however, 
to  the  resolute  public  spirit  of  a  single  individual. 
DOWNING,  to  whom  the  country  owes  so  much  for  its 
advances  of  refinement  and  embellishment,  undertook  to 
suppress  pig  at  Newburgh,  where  he  resided.  He  was 
told  it  was  Quixotic — that  the  time,  money,  and  trouble 
it  would  cost  might  ruin  him — that  his  grounds  would  be 
disfigured,  his  trees  girdled,  and  his  garden  of  precious 
plants  torn  in  pieces  by  the  infuriated  people — that  the 
poor  had  no  place  to  keep  their  pigs,  and  there  was  much 
to  be  got  by  a  smart  pig  on  the  public  highway.  His 
self-interest  and  pity  for  the  pig  proprietor  were  both 
appealed  to.  He  persevered,  however,  patiently  and 
long — and  succeeded. 

Now  we  want  such  a  pig-apostle  at  Canterbury — some 
public-spirited,  generous  and  kindly  man,  who  will  make 
himself  remotely  beloved  and  remembered  by  such  a 
crusade  of  unpopularity  against  the  rowdies  at  our  gates. 
We  wait  for  him,  as  New  York  waits  for  her  pig-apostle. 
Let  us  make  ready  to  give  their  advents  a  welcome. 


LIGHT     FROM      A      DISTANCE.  99 


.^LETTER    XT. 

Trouble  in  Gate  Designing — Letter  from  an  Unknown  Correspondent,  on  Gates 
— Invisible  Society  at  Idlewild — Correction  of  Error  as  to  Hemlocks — Hand 
some  Irishman's  Mistake  in  Felling  Trees,  &c. 

July  2,  1853. 

MY  gate  trouble  at  Idlewild  seems  to  draw  in  light  from 
a  distance — we  candles  of  authors  burning  darkest  at  the 
wick.  A  friendly  subscriber  to  the  Home  Journal,  who 
signs  himself  "  parochially  Yours,"  sends  me  a  pencil- 
drawing  of  a  gate  that  is  both  "  pig-tight "  and  beautiful; 
one,  indeed,  which  I  should  have  pounced  upon  as  a  trea 
sure  of  modest  usefulness  and  elegance,  had  I  seen  it  in 
time,  but  which,  now  (my  gates  being  built),  I  can  only 
reserve  for  the  next  brother-suitability  who  nestles  a  cot 
tage  hereabouts.  The  letter  which  accompanies  it,  by 
the  way,  has  a  verbal  description,  which  may  enable  the 
appreciative  to  take  possession  of  the  model  without  see 
ing  the  drawing;  and,  for  this  reason,  and  because  the 
writer  touches  instructively  and  charmingly  on  one  or  two 
other  points,  I  will  copy  the  most  of  what  he  says  : 

*  *  Your  gate  difficulties,  as  recorded  in  a  late  number  of  the 


100        LETTERS   FROM   IDLE WILD. 

Home  Journal,  will  meet  with  sympathy  as  far  West  as  civiliza 
tion  has  made  picket-surroundings  necessary.  An  application  to 
our  village  carpenter,  a  man  of  skill  and  taste,  for  the  invention 
of  a  new  gate,  resulted  in  one,  of  which  his  inclosed  pencil-sketch 
will  give  you  some  idea.  The  construction  is  simple  and  inexpen 
sive  ;  while  the  cappings  of  the  gate  posts  are  particularly  new 
and  becoming.  The  form  of  the  main  part  of  the  cap,  as  you  will 
see,  is  that  of  a  truncated  pyramid,  with  a  projection  of  about  four 
inches,  and  supported  by  two  brackets  on  each  side  of  the  post. 
The  top  rail  of  the  gate  is  supported  (or  rather  finished)  by  light 
open  brackets  between  the  pickets  ;  and  the  top  rail  of  the  fence 
by  tight  brackets  between  the  pickets.  Both  gate  and  posts  look 
well  when  built.  At  the  left  of  the  sketch  is  another  sort  of  fence 
and  post  which  I  am  now  having  built.  The  post  is  octagon  in 
shape,  with  the  cap  to  match,  and  the  moulding  "broke  around 
it,"  as  the  carpenters  express  it.  The  gate  used  with  the  octagon 
post  is  similar  to  the  other,  but  both  gate  and  post  are  adapted  to 

a  lighter  fence. 

You  say  you  sought  to  make  your  gate  an  index  to  what  was 
behind  it.  Allow  one  familiar  with  your  writings  to  suggest- 
either  of  these  gates,  particularly  the  first,  as  proper  to  carry  out 
your  design.  I  could  go  on  and  reason  comparatively  and  logic 
ally  in  extenuation,  convincing  you  that  a  man  is  no  more  a 
correct  judge  of  his  own  mental  character  than  he  is  of  his  own 
portrait ;  but  I  forbear,  for  which  I  expect  your  thanks.  If  the 
gate  and  its  belongings  do  not  suit  you,  however,  throw  it  aside, 
and  give  me  credit  for  desiring  to  please  you. 

I  once  passed  through  a  door-yard  gate  which  did,  though  unin- 
tentially,  give  an  indication  of  the  designer's  character.  The  gate 
was  a  common  one,  shut  by  a  chain  and  ball.  But  the  post  to 


A      WOODEN- HEADED      PORTER.  101 

which  the  inner  end  of  the  chain  was  attached,  was  carved  and 
painted  in  the  likeness  of  a  negro,  with  one  hand  raised  to  his 
cocked  hat,  and  the  other  extended  to  welcome  you  in.  As  you 
opened  the  gate  towards  you,  in  going  in,  the  negro  post-porter 
bent  towards  you  by  a  joint  in  his  back,  and  fairly  bowed  you  in. 
Upon  letting  the  gate  go,  a  spring  in  his  back  "brought  him  up 
standing  "  again,  ready  for  the  next  comer.  This  faithful  fellow 
performed  the  amiable  for  his  master  for  many  years,  without 
reward,  except  now  and  then  a  new  coat— of  paint ;  and  finally 
died  of  a  rheumatic  back,  contracted  in  his  master's  service. 

I  can  corroborate  the  phenomenon  of  the  sprouting  of  your 
chestnut  fence-posts.  I  lately  saw  a  row  of  willow  cross-stakes 
used  to  support  the  top-rail  of  a  "Virginia,"  or  "Snake-fence," 
which  had  leaved  out  profusely  while  performing  their  new 
duties ;  and  they  presented  a  very  singular  appearance, 

too. 

I  thank  you  for  your  good  word  in  favor  of  my  old  friends,  the 
"  hemlocks."  In  this  hemlock  town,  they  are  of  little  account. 
My  carpenter,  who  hates  hemlock  as  a  cat  hates  water,  calls  it 
"'devil's  pine."  He  says  his  trade  have  a  tradition  that  the  devil 
undertook  to  make  a  pine  tree  ;  but  found  it  so  shaky  that  it  had 
to  be  pinned  together  with  long,  hard  knots  ;  which  knots,  in  lum 
ber,  are  a  carpenter's  abomination. 

Of  the  invisible  but  gay  society  at  Icllewild— (very 
tangible,  very  enjoyable  and  very  sufficient,  for  me, 
though  many  would  think  it  differed  little  from  a  hermit's 
loneliness),— this  letter  is  one  note  of  the  music,  over 
heard.  The  consciousness  of  readers  so  thoughtful  of  us — 


102  LETTERS      FROM      I  OLE  WILD. 

friends  at  a  distance  who  partake  of  one's  daily  existence, 
and  respond,  silently  or  verbally,  to  its  key-records,  as 
given  in  these  Idlewild  Papers — peoples  the  wood-path, 
that  looks  to  the  stranger  lonely.  There  is  no  solitude  in 
thoughts  that  are  waited  for.  Oh,  how  many  there  are — 
kind  and  indulgent  as  friends  need  be — who  walk  with 
me  by  the  brook  ! 

But  there  is  now  and  then  one  who  catches  me  trip 
ping,  and  reads  me  a  little  lecture  ;  and  I  have  one,  refer 
ring  to  the  "  hemlocks  "  spoken  of  just  now,  which  I  will 
quote  for  the  setting  right  of  one  of  my  chance  mis-quota 
tions.  If  the  reader  remembers,  I  supported  my  expe 
rience  of  the  anodyne  effect  of  hemlock  woods,  by  giving 
an  account  of  the  tree,  from  an  encyclopedia.  I  turned 
to  it  in  haste,  when  wearily  closing  a  finished  letter,  and, 
it  appears,  copied  a  description  of  the  wrong  tree.  Thus 
talks  my  viewless  companion  to  me,  on  the  subject  : — 

*  *  From  long  revolving  in  your  sphere  through  the  medium 
of  your  writings  I  have  come  to  feel  a  sort  of  personal  familiarity 
with  you  and  yours.  Having,  therefore,  noticed  a  mistake  in  your 
last  letter  from  Idlewild,  I  take  the  liberty  of  pointing  it  out.  In 
a  note  to  the  mention  of  "  hemlocks,"  you  evidently  confound  the 
beautiful  conifera  which  overshadow  your  cottage,  with  the 
"  unbelliferous  "  water-hemlock,  wherewith  our  friend  Socrates 
dismissed  this  world  from  his  presence.  A  potation  known  to  me 
in  some  part  of  my  experience  as  "  swipes/7  is  manufactured,  I 
believe,  from  the  leaves  of  our  hemlock  tree  ;  and,  if  the  Athenian 


HINTS      ON      HORTICULTURE.  103 

sage  had  solemnly  drank  but  a  decoction  of  this  hemlock,  his 
digestive  organs  would  have  suffered  no  farther  disturbance, 
probably,  than  that  which  is  necessarily  consequent  upon  imbibing 
a  glass  of  inferior  "  spruce  beer." 

Yours  in  all  friendliness. 

Another  nameless  friend  sends  me  a  valuable  explana 
tion  of  my  failure  in  the  transplanting  of  two  or  three  of 
these  same  "  hemlocks."  He  writes  thus,  from  Boston  : — 

*  *  I  notice  by  your  last  letter  that  the  hemlocks,  of  you  own 
setting  out,  are  dying.  They  were  probably  transplanted  out  of 
season.  Now  (June  15),  is  the  time  for  transplanting  evergreen 
trees,  and  it  is  the  only  time  of  year  when  it  can  be  done  success 
fully.  At  least,  from  now  to  the  fifteenth  of  July  is  the  most 
favorable  time,  though  I  have  done  it  with  perfect  success  as  late 
as  the  first  of  August.  This  was  at  Dorchester,  but  perhaps  your 
season  is  a  little  earlier.  The  President  of  our  Horticultural 
Society  told  me  he  thought  July  the  best  month.  Remove  the 
tree  without  injuring  the  roots,  but,  except  the  bucket  of  water 
after  setting  it  out,  do  not  continue  to  water  it  for  the  week  or 
ten  days  following,  unless  there  is  a  drought. 

The  danger  of  too  much  watering,  for  transplanted 
trees,  is  a  new  suggestion — one  at  least,  which  I  had  not 
found  in  the  books  on  horticulture— and  my  kind  friend 
may  have  thus  given  us  one  of  those  precious  little  un- 
previously-printed  truths  which  are  getting  so  scarce, 
now-a-days.  Mine,  which  died,  were  watered  daily— a 


104  LETTERS      FROM      IDLEWILEr. 

loyal  devotion  which  I  had  thought  seldom  thrown  away 
upon  a  tree.  And  my  care  and  admiration  of  this,  the 
most  beautiful  of  my  surroundings,  has,  in  another  way, 
proved  equally  disastrous.  I  must  tell  the  story.  It  will 
be  a  kind  of  obituary  notice  of  the  lost  trees.  But,  it  may 
be  useful,  also,  as  a  caution  to  the  lovers  of  such  things. 

The  working  men  who  drift  along  through  the  country, 
are  of  all  sorts  of  personal  appearance.  My  neighbors, 
however,  not  selecting,  as  I  do,  with  an  eye  to  the  effect 
they  will  have,  as  figures  in  the  landscape,  while  they 
work—  (and  the  humblest  and  most  stumpy  getting 
employment  the  easiest) — I  have  a  kind  of  first  choice  of 
them,  as  to  looks.  If  there  is  a  man  on  the  road  who  is 
unconsciously  or  saucily  picturesque — either  from  his 
uppish  bearing,  his  rough  beard,  or  that  peculiarity  of 
appearance,  handsome  or  otherwise,  which  raises  mistrust 
against  a  new  comer — he  is  pretty  sure  to  bring  up  at 
Idlewild,  where  he  is  hired  to  dig  like  any  other  man  ; 
but  where  he  performs  also  an  additional  service  of  which 
he  is  not  very  laboriously  aware.  It  is  easy  to  locate 
him  very  much  as  a  painter  would  do — if  he  is  to  chop 
up  a  heap  of  brush,  for  instance,  to  "  dump "  the  load 
and  his  chopping-log  at  an  angle  of  the  brook  or  under  a 
slope  of  the  hill — and  he  gives  life  to  the  scene  by  action 
in  just  the  right  place,  charmingly  effective  in  his  shirt 
sleeves  and  his  easy  unconsciousness.  One  of  my  men, 


A     RUTHLESS      APOLLO.  105 

who  has  been  with  nie  for  several  months,  has  the  brow 
and  bearing  of  a  knight-templar,  and  a  beard  of  which 
Domitias  Ahenobarbus  might  be  proud  ;  and,  as  he 
works  among  my  trees  and  precipices,  he  is  often  the  most 
centralizing  and  effective  point  of  the  view — the  offset  to 
a  waterfall  here  or  a  rock  there — and  embellishing  won 
derfully  the  otherwise  uninhabited  landscape.  He  has 
little  idea  how  many  fine  pictures  he  has  helped  to  make, 
that  are  stored  away  in  my  reverie-loft — but  I  was  about 
to  speak  of  one  whom  I  remember  with  less  satisfaction. 

In  the  depth  of  an  almost  impenetrable  wilderness,  four 
or  five  noble  young  hemlocks  guarded  a  spring  ;  and  I 
was  thinking  of  clearing  away  the  underbrush  from  these, 
and  so  making  an  easier  approach  to  my  hidden  Egeria, 
when  a  man  applied  to  me  for  work.  He  had  a  bad  face, 
but  he  was  otherwise  magnificent.  So  straight  a  back, 
so  slight  in  hips  and  waist,  a  neck  and  head  with  so 
graceful  an  uplift,  chest  so  expanded  and  limbs  so  moulded 
for  lithe  elegance  and  power — he  was  a  Paddy-Apollo. 
He  looked  as  if  his  body  knew  it,  and  stood  and  moved 
accordingly — though  his  brain  was  too  dull  to  compre 
hend  it. 

I  engaged  him  at  once — gave  him  an  axe — and  directed 
him  to  the  spring,  where  he  should  go  and  wait  for  me, 
after  his  dinner.  Some  one  called  and  detained  me  an 
hour  or  two,  but  I  finally  mounted  my  mare,  and  rode  to 

5* 


106  LETTERS     FROM     IDLEWILD. 

the  glen,  thinking  what  a  fine  combination  it  would  be — 
such  a  figure  as  that,  at  work  under  those  magnificent 
hemlocks.  I  reached  the  spot.  There  stood  my  man. 
And  there  lay  my  trees !  He  had  cut  them  down — all  four. 
What  my  exclamation  was,  I  could  scarcely  venture  to 
try  ink  upon.  But  I  remember  that  I  found  very  little 
Christian  resignation  in  his  excuse : — "  You  didn't  come, 
Sir,"  said  he,  "  and  I  thought  I'd  letter  go  at  something." 
Four  beloved  hemlocks,  shading  a  spring,  lost  by  appre 
ciating  the  beauty  of  a  man  1 


LAUREL     BLOSSOMS.  lOt 


LETTER    XYL 

Laurel-blossoming— The  Imbedded  Stone,  and  Jem's  Neglect  of  his  Country 
man's  honors— Sabbath  stop  to  our  Running  "Water,  &c.,  &c. 

July  9,  1853. 

NATURE,  it  seems  to  me,  has  her  "calico  and  haber 
dashery."  The  hanging  out  of  the  "  Spring  goods  "  along 
the  Bowery  was  never  more  gaudy  than  the  laurels  now 
in  flower  hereabouts.  The  blossoms  are  too  much,  for 
they  smother  the  leaves — the  sea-green,  massive  and 
glossy  leaves,  which  are  as  beautiful  as  the  flowers. 
Everybody  exclaims  (it  is  true),  at  this  gaudy  glory  of 
the  laurels — a  bushel  of  blossoms  on  every  stem,  and  the 
colors  in  confused  heaps,  like  "  the  worsted"  for  a  rain 
bow — but  I  observe  that  the  slighter  and  rarer  beauties 
of  shade  and  water  are,  meantime,  lost  on  them.  Once 
familiar  with  the  tangle  of  a  little  wilderness  like  this,  it 
is  as  curious  and  interesting  to  see  what  strangers  will 
pick  out  to  admire,  as  for  a  painter,  who  left  a  pulse  in 
every  stroke  of  the  pencil,  to  listen  to  critics  as  they  pass. 
Open  to  air  and  sunshine  as  it  all  is,  there  are  secrets  of 
beauty  at  Idlewild.  And  these  are  easily  missed ; 


108  LETTERS      FROM      I  OLE  WILD. 

though,  like  the  blood-drop  of  his  own  life,  which  the 
poet  hides  in  a  fiction,  it  seems  strange,  that  this  is  not 
alone  read  and  the  rest  forgotten.  One  walks  on,  beside 
stranger  or  friend,  and  leaves  an  overlooked  loveliness 
unspoken  of— for  it  spoils  a  charm  to  be  obliged  to  point 
it  out  and  explain  it— but  one  cannot  help  fretting,  now 
and  then,  over  favorites  unseen  and  neglected.  And  it  is 
not  much  consolation  (strange  to  say)  that  one  owns 
more  of  a  minute  by  seeing  more,  and  enjoying  more,  in  it 
— owns  more  of  any  sweet  spot  by  appreciating  it  better 

owns  more  of  life,  more  of  beauty  in  people,  more  of 

sunrises  and  sunsets,  more  of  books  and  of  music,  by  hav 
ing  an  eye  truer  and  deeper,  a  sense  keener  and  fonder. 
There  is  a  gold — life's  purest  and  most  precious  ore,  too — 
which  we  are  impatient  (this  would  prove)  not  to  share 

with  all  comers. 

*<•#**** 

And,  apropos  of  laurels  and  appreciation,  I  had  a  smile, 
a  day  or  two  ago,  which  I  believe  I  will  not  keep  to 
myself,  though  I  must  record  a  disparagement  of  a  friend, 
by  telling  the  story  of  it. 

There  is  a  tree  in  the  avenue  to  our  cottage  on  the 
inland  side,  which  has  taken  up  a  flat  piece  of  rock,  as  a 
cobbler  takes  a  lapstone  between  his  knees.  The  bark  of 
the  trunk  having  grown  around  it,  the  stone  (of  the  size 
of  the  bottom  of  a  chair)  has  been  gradually  lifted,  till  it 


THE    JUDGE'S    BENCH.  109 

is  now  about  two  feet  from  the  ground,  solidly  imbedded, 
and  as  level  and  comfortable  a  seat  as  a  carpenter  could 
contrive.  Strolling  along  the  grounds  with  us,  not  long 
ago,  out  friend,  Judge  Daly,  seated  himself  here  ;  and  it 
has  ever  since  been  called  "  the  Judge's  Bench." 

But  the  Judge  is  an  Irishman,  and  so  is  my  magnificent 
Jem,  with  the  Crusader's  beard— a  beard  with  two  things 
behind  it  which  I  very  much  prize,  viz  : — a  strong  back 
and  a  constant  and  hearty  performance  of  what  he  under 
takes.  We  were  at  work  upon  the  road,  soon  after  the 
Judge's  visit;  and  a  superb  and  luxuriant  laurel  standing 
in  the  line  of  one  of  the  curves,  I  saw  that  its  removal 
was  inevitable,  but  told  Jem  to  take  advantage  of  the 
opportunity  to  pay  an  appropriate  compliment.  We  had 
made  his  countryman  a  Judge  in  America,  and  the  least 
he  could  do,  as  a  brother  Emerald,  was  to  grace  the  bare 
bench  with  this  luxuriant  laurel.  We  selected  the  spot, 
while  I  pronounced  the  Judge's  official  eulogy,  and  Jem 
(I  thought)  listened  cordially,  and  promised  to  transplant 
the  shrub  with  great  care,  so  that  it  would  flower  in  a 
week  or  two  at  his  worship's  elbow. 

Jem  forgot  all  about  it !  And  it  was  the  first  order,  in 
eight  months,  that  he  had  not  executed  to  the  letter. 
I  was  away  from  home  the  morning  following,  but,  passing 
where  the  road  had  been  graded,  the  second  day  after,  I 
saw  the  uprooted  laurel  thrown  into  the  hemlock  thicket, 


110  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE WILD. 

on  one  side.  I  called  to  my  man.  "Faith  I"  said  Jem, 
rubbing  his  head  with  the  most  honest  embarrassment,  "  I 
wholly  ^remembered  it,  sir  !"  He  immediately  and  eager 
ly  set  to  work,  and  dug  a  hole  and  planted  the  neglected 
laurel,  however  ;  and,  though  a  shrub  which  oftenest  dies 
with  transplanting,  it  flowered  superbly  ;  almost  cushion 
ing  the  Judge's  Seat  with  its  exuberant  spread.  But  it 
was  natural,  in  Jem,  after  all,  to  have  paid  little  attention 
when  his  countryman  was  praised.  An  American  in  Ire 
land  would  have  done  the  same.  We  are  ready  to  glorify 
the  foreigner  for  the  very  qualities  to  which  we  are  dull, 
in  our  countrymen.  Jem's  was  an  e very-day  verification 
of  the  old  proverb,  but  being  his  first  inattention  in  almost 
a  year  of  service,  I  thought  the  smile  it  stirred  was 
worth  sharing,  perhaps. 

Nothing  could  well  be  wilder  or  more  lawlessly  pictur 
esque  than  the  Brook  of  Idlewild— the  two  hundred  feet 
of  sudden  descent  which  it  performs  for  our  fenced-in  and 
private  admiration,  being  a  wholly  untame-able  ravine  of 
rock  and  rapid — but  it  is  subject  to  the  restraints  of  piety 
and  industry  to  a  degree  of  which  the  admiring  stranger 
is  not  always  aware.  Our  city  friends  oftenest  passing 
Sunday  with  us,  and  the  wooded  solitudes  of  the  glen 
being  an  inviting  temple  for  rambling  converse  and  medi 
tation,  it  would  be  pleasant  if  the  waters,  on  that  day, 


USE   SUPERSEDES   ORNAMENT.      Ill 

were  even  less  restrained  than  on  a  week  day — grander 
in  their  beanty  and  louder  in  their  anthem  of  accompani 
ment.  But,  on  that  day,  the  channel  is  dry  1  The  friends 
who  walk  where  should  be  the  torrent  we  talk  of,  find  but 
rocks,  shadows,  and  silence.  Spite  of  our  wishes  to  the 
contrary,  the  brook  makes  the  Sabbath  a  day  of  rest. 

Yes — for  the  five  mills,  above  us  on  the  stream,  shut 
their  sluice-gates  on  Saturday  night,  to  start  with  full 
ponds  on  Monday  !  In  the  summer,  when  the  springs 
are  comparatively  low,  it  takes  the  twenty-four  hours  to 
fill  all  these  industrial  reservoirs  ;  and,  on  the  first  work 
ing-day  of  the  week — when  our  friends  have  just  left  us — 
the  loosened  waters  come  down  and  the  cascades  are  in 
their  glory.  The  washerwomen,  perhaps,  think  it  a  spe 
cial  Providence,  contrived  though  it  be  by  mortal  millers  ; 
but  we  wish  that  "  washing-day  "  would  bring  our  visitors 
also  to  the  brook.  Charming  on  Monday,  we  are,  on  the 
other  five  days,  subject  for  our  beauty  to  the  caprices  of 
the  clouds — modified  to  a  certain  degree,  it  is  true,  by 
the  miller  next  above  us,  who  may  shut  his  gate  morning 
or  evening,  and  stop  off  our  loveliness  till  his  dam  runs 
over.  Those  who  come  to  Idlewild,  day  after  day,  may 
forget  or  remember,  as  they  prefer  the  romantic  explained 
or  not,  that  the  wild  torrent  by  which  they  stray  depends 
somewhat  on  whether  our  neighbor  has  corn  to  grind. 


112  -LETTERS      FROM      IDLEWILD 


LETTER    XYII. 

Effect  of  clearing  out  Underbrush  from  a  Wood— Praise  Disclaimed— Horror 
of  Bloomeri-ized  Evergreens— Neglect  of  departed  Great  Men— Carrion  Nui 
sance,  &c.,  &c. 

Zuly  16,  1S53. 

To  place  the  columns  of  a  temple  and  let  angels  build 
the  roof,  might  be  thought  to  realize  the  Millenium  which 
we  all  hope  to  come  back  and  see — but  it  is  very  much 
the  experience  of  one  who  clears  a  wood  of  underbrush  in 
the  winter,  and  then  sees  it  leafed  over  in  June.  I  daily 
walk  through  an  avenue  which  we  cleared  in  December 
last,  and  feel  as  if  I  had  been  helped  by  a  miracle.  It  is 
an  aisle  under  a  dome  of  emerald.  An  atmosphere  so  dim 
with  contemplative  shadows,  yet  so  living  with  the  flecks 
of  light,  made  tremulous  with  the  stirring  leaves,  seems  to 
me  an  outdoing  of  Gothic  windows  and  painted  glass.  So 
to  contrive  beauty  and  exercise  power — to  begin  a  work 
which  is  so  followed  up  and  completed  by  Nature — is  as 
good  as  to  be  a  king  and  build  a  cathedral. 

But  I  (the  stray  cows  and  I)  must  enter  a  disclaimer  at 
some  praise  that  has  been  bestowed  upon  the  trees  of 


AN      ENTHUSIASTIC      EDITOR.  113 

Idlewild.  A  stranger,  who  has  been  here,  writes  kindly 
and  enthusiastically  to  the  editor  of  the  Newlurgh 
Gazette,  and  sums  us  up  in  a  sentence  :  "The  view  not  to 
be  surpassed,  the  trees  beautifully  trimmed  and  plenty  of 
them;  rapids,  falls  and  ponds."  And  to  this  the  editor 
himself  adds  a  confirmatory  and  charmingly  written  half 
column,  but  repeating  the  partial  error  which  I,  and  the 
cattle  of  Neighbor  Loosepig,  cannot  justly  leave  unmodi 
fied  by  an  explanation.  Thus  writes  Mr.  Allison  (who  I 
hope  will  honor  his  brother-craftsman  with  his  acquiantance 
when  he  next  drives  over)  : — 

"  Our  correspondent  does  not  over-estimate  the  beauties  of '  Idle- 
wild,'  it  is,  truly,  a  delightful  spot,  as  a  recent  excursion  to  its  cool 
shades  and  gurgling  waterfalls  convinced  us.  It  is  in  all  respects 
a  delectable  abode — delightfully  located  on  the  west  bank  of  the 
Hudson,  about  five  miles  below  Newburgh.  The  road  leading  to 
it  is  charmingly  picturesque,  and  we  know  not  a  drive  that  can 
more  agreeably  occupy  an  afternoon.  We  were  fairly  lost  in  the 
wildness  of  its  solitudes.  Were  we  an  afflicted  Rip  Van  Winkle, 
we  know  of  no  other  spot  where  we  would  sooner  sleep  away  our 
troubles.  Nature  holds  out  an  alluring  pastime  to  the  wanderer 
along  its  solitary  walks — its  serpentine  streams — its  wild  water 
falls  ;  your  ears  are  continually  saluted  by  the  music  of  miniature 
torrents  and  cascades,  where  the  wild  waters  are  precipitated  over 
ledge  and  precipice,  as  they  rush  boundingly  on  to  the  Hudson. 
A  beautiful  variety  of  trees,  judiciously  improved  by  the  hand  of 
Art,  increase  the  picturesqueness  of  the  scene.  Mr.  Willis  has  here 
a  country  seat  in  all  respects  calculated  to  surround  a  literary  life 


114        LETTERS   FROM   IDLE  WILD. 

with  the  very  inspirations  which  it  needs.  After  seeing  it  and 
roaming  for  several  hours  amid  its  exquisite  scenes,  listening  to  its 
murmuring  waterfalls,  and  fanning  ourselves  in  the  breezes  that 
loiter  in  its  sylvan  recesses,  we  no  longer  wondered,  etc.,  etc.,  *  * 
The  feelings  which  the  spot  spontaneously  inspired,  were  aptly 
expressed  by  a  lady  of  our  party,  who  wrote  upon  the  artificial 
railing,  which  assisted  us  across  the  stream  just  below  the  princi 
pal  waterfall — '  Second  edition  of  Paradise  Regained — Illus 
trated.'  It  is  truly  a  miniature  Eden — as  near  an  earthly  Paradise 
as  Nature  and  Art  can  make  it." 

This  is  charming  praise,  but  for  its  intimation  as  to  my 
"  improving  trees  by  the  hand  of  Art."  If,  by  "  trees 
beautifully  trimmed "  is  meant  trees  of  which  the  cow- 
twistings  have  been  cut  off,  I  consent  to  the  fact  thus 
gracefully  mystified.  Neighbor  Loosepig's  cattle  have 
heads  full  of  fleas ;  and  when  they  break  in,  after  sun 
down,  and  pass  the  night  between  grazing  and  twisting 
their  horns  into  the  lower  branches  of  the  cedars  and 
hemlocks,  they  spoil,  of  course,  such  foliage  as  they  can 
reach.  Perhaps  our  visitor  had  the  removal  of  these 
un-mend-able  small-tooth  combs  of  breachy  cattle  in  his 
eye  when  he  Avrote.  But,  if  he  supposed  there  was  a 
single  tree  which  had  been  despoiled  of  its  lower  branches 
for  beauty  only,  he  does  my  love  of  Nature  an  injustice. 
Oh  no  ! — trees  despoiled  of  their  lower  drapery  there  may 
be — but  those  Bloomerized  evergreens  had  torn  petticoats 


POSTHUMOUS      FORGETFULNESS.  115 

to  begin  with.  The  legs  to  be  seen  are  of  those  whose 
covering  was  not  worth  preserving.  I  have  Do  wiring's 
horror  of  tree-trimmin  —  let  me  here  record  it. 


Of  cows  I  have  one  more  local  mention  to  make  —  one 
that  will,  perhaps,  be  delicate  to  handle  —  but  I  must 
venture  upon  it,  and  try  in  some  other  way  to  patch  up 
my  popularity  with  my  neighbors. 

We  are  neglectful  of  our  dead,  as  a  nation.  Mount 
Yernon,  upon  which  England  would  have  piled  a  hundred 
Westminster  Abbeys,  if  there  were  room,  is  just  sold  to 
the  highest  bidder.  The  columns  to  our  statesmen  and 
our  hero-Presidents  rise  with  galvanized  spasms.  Near 
by  to  Idlewild  (a  Spirit  of  Glory  and  a  Spirit  of  Beauty, 
whose  once  belonging  here  gives  pride  and  grace  to  the 
air  about  us)  are  the  unmonumented  graves  of  Duncan 
and  Downing.  We  seem  to  resent  greatness,  and  pass  it 
eagerly  behind  us  into  oblivion. 

But  (if  I  may  be  pardoned  for  having  stumbled  over  a 
sadness  when  in  search  of  a  smile)  I  was  about  to  speak 
of  the  other  extreme  of  this  posthumous  forge  tfulness. 
On  the  romantic  banks  of  the  Hudson  we  do  not  even 
bury  our  cows  !  Since  last  August,  almost  a  twelve 
month,  the  carcass  of  one  has  lain  at  water's  edge,  within 
stone's  throw  of  the  lively  village  of  Cornwall;  and  within 
a  mile  of  Newburgh  lies  another  (and  has  lain  for  the 


116  LETTERS      FROM      I  D  L  E  W  I  L  D  . 

three  months  since  warmer  weather  forced  its  claims  on  the 
nose  of  posterity,  and  how  much  longer  I  know  not) — 
and,  of  the  lesser  dead,  cur  and  grimalkin,  there  are  daily 
comings  and  goings,  their  insignificant  weight  giving  them 
a  blessed  buoyancy  upon  the  tide  through  which  they  are 
no  sooner  detested  than  forgotten. 

Now — after  the  subject's  being  suggested  daily  by  the 
shie-ing  of  my  mare,  or  the  call  for  camphor  by  those  who 
are  driving  with  me — there  have  occurred  to  my  mind 
three  remedies  for  the  evil,  one  of  which  must  come  into 
effect,  it  seems  to  me,  with  the  first  step  of  our  glorious 
country  beyond  the  mere  prosperities  of  civilization. 
Either  each  family  should  be  taxed  with  the  honors  to  its 
own  dead,  from  the  chance  carrion  that  drifts  upon  its 
land,  to  the  chance  greatness  that  was  rocked  in  its  cra 
dle  ;  or  they,  neighbors  or  others,  whose  comforts  or 
interests,  safety  or  sense  of  beauty,  are,  or  have  been, 
affected  by  the  unhonored  one,  should  contribute  as  they 
pass  ;  or,  the  Public  should  recognize  duty  to  the  dead 
among  its  governmental  functions,  and  appoint  its  officers 
accordingly.  The  latter,  after  much  reflection  (assisted 
by  camphor  and  compulsory  attention  and  remark),  seems 
to  me  the  remedy  most  efficient  and  desirable.  In  its  full 
extent — justice  to  all  the  dead — it  would  be  sanguine 
indeed  to  believe  its  going  ante-Millenially  into  operation. 
But  there  is  hope  in  beginnings.  The  new  office  would, 


DE     MORTUIS.  117 

with  even  limited  funds  and  functions,  be  welcomed  in 
every  village  upon  lake  or  river,  and  find  candidates 
enough.  And  when  the  new  functionary — (Esq.  and 
CORONER  OF  DEAD  Cow) — shall  have  done  justice  for 
a  while  to  the  chance  un-salt-ed  on  brook  and  river,  may 
we  take  a  step  onward  towards  a  shadow  that  is  now 
dwarfed  in  the  distance  before  us — the  country's  duty  to 
its  unhonored  for  deeds  and  intellects  ! 


118  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE  WILD. 


LETTER  XVIII. 

Summer  of  Even  Weather — Lightning-Rods  falling  into  Disuse — Filling  of 
Country  Boarding-houses — Luxury  of  Rural  Remoteness — Viewless  Peopling 
of  a  Spot — Wallace  the  Composer,  and  his  Tribute  to  Alexander  Smith,  &c.,  &c. 

July  23,  1853. 

THE  summer,  hitherto,  has  been  one  of  singularly  even 
distribution — rain  and  sunshine,  coolness  and  heat, 
breezes  and  thunder-storms,  alternating,  with  the  punc 
tual  iteration  of  meal-times.  Of  thunder  and  lightning 
we  have  had  more  than  used  to  be  a  monthly  allowance  ; 
but  as  these  imposing  phenomena  of  weather  come  around 
with  more  common-place  and  familiar  regularity,  while, 
at  the  same  time,  the  lightning  "  strikes  "  more  seldom 
than  formerly,  we  are  in  want  of  a  theory  to  account  for 
it.  Has  the  republican  principle  impregnated  the  ex 
halations,  so  that  any  superiority  of  one  storm  over 
another  is  yielding  to  a  democratic  equality,  in  cloud- 
land  ?  Or,  does  the  increasing  net-work  of  railroad  iron 
and  telegraph  wires  divide  and  scatter  the  otherwise  un 
tapped  accumulations  of  electricity  ?  Of  the  two  causes, 
it  would  seem  to  be  rather  owing  to  the  spread  of  the 
popular  principle,  judging  by  simultaneous  phenomena — 


SUMMER     CHANGES.  119 

the  Theodore-Parker-slaught  upon  the  glory-cloud  of 
Webster's  memory,  for  example,  aud  the  lament  of  the 
Tribune  over  the  galleries  of  valuable  pictures*"  buried 
in  the  private  houses  and  parlors  of  the  English  aristo 
cracy,"  being  somewhat  corroborative.  Whichever  the 
cause,  moral  or  physical,  thunder-clouds,  like  English 
noblemen,  are  becoming  mainly  industrial  in  their  action 
on  the  atmosphere  around  us — the  conservative  exclu- 
siveness  of  lords  and  weather  alike  losing  force — and, 
even  in  my  small  way,  I  can  acknowledge  having  profited 
by  the  change.  There  is  a  proudly  democratic  trifle  in 
my  pocket,  the  price  of  a  lightning-rod,  that  would  have 
been  necessary  to  my  new  cottage,  but  for  thunder-and- 
lightning's  having  become  of  no  consequence. 
******* 
With  the  advance  of  the  summer,  the  usual  change  has 
come  about,  in  the  character  of  our  population.  The 
farm-houses  are  peopled  with  city-boarders — butter 
scarce  :  horses  in  great  demand  ;  a  tree  an  exception, 
which  has  not  a  nurse  and  baby  under  it  ;  and  the  roads, 
at  evening,  quite  hollyhocked  with  young  ladies  in  gay 
ribbons.  Near  as  we  are  to  two  of  the  most  fashionable 
summer  resorts  of  the  country,  we  charmingly  preserve 
our  rural  habits,  as  a  neighborhood.  At  a  mere  biscuit- 
toss  over  the  ridge  of  the  Highlands  sits  West  Point ; 
but  the  row-boat  communication  around  the  bluff,  is  so 


120  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE WILD. 

tedious  as  to  be  an  effectual  barrier.  Newburgh,  with 
its  gay  aiid  crowded  "  Powelton  House,"  is  but  four 
miles  off,  but  the  two  toll-gates,  between,  seem  to  fence 
off  their  gay  equipages  from  our  lovely  lanes.  Were  it 
not  for  the  proposed  railroad  on  the  Hoboken  side  of  the 
Hudson  (which  will  at  once  thoroughfare  us  into  the 
featureless  come-at-a-bleness  of  the  rest  of  this  valley  of 
hurry),  we  should  remain  a  rare  shelf  of  country-life  still 
untainted — domestic  and  economical  ruralizing  still  to  be 
found,  here,  for  quiet  families  and  lovers  of  unceremonious 
seclusion.  We  may  last  simple,  for  yet  a  while,  it  is  true 
— but  I  cannot  help  croaking  over  the  inevitable  fore- 
shado wings  of  "  improvement  in  the  vicinity,"  however 
much  my  neighbors  may  rejoice  at  the  prophetic  dollars 
it  adds  to  the  prices  of  their  lands.  With  no  deliberate 
leisure — no  contemplative  repose  to  strengthen  the  inward 
structure  of  character,  and  mortar  into  proportion  the 
broken  edges  of  events — life  becomes  a  mere  scaffolding 
of  destinies  unbuilt,  loosely  incomplete,  and  unworthily 
slight  and  temporary.  I  dread  more  industry  hereabouts . 
I  would  patriotically  oppose  any  more  stir,  any  more 
hurry,  any  more  of  what  would  call  for  larger  shop-signs, 
fresh  paint  and  "business  enterprise."  But  let  us  enjoy 
the  benighted  repose  of  our  little  corner,  yet  a  while. 
******* 
Idlewild  is  getting  fast  peopled  with  the  viewless  crowd 


WALLACE,      THE      COMPOSER.  121 

that  will  make  haunted  ground  of  it.  Knowing  what  we 
do  of  Nature,  it  would  be  illiberal  to  suppose  that  a 
shaded  walk  is  the  same,  whether  fair  forms  have  trod  it 
or  no — that  the  brook-music  of  a  wild  glen  is  the  same, 
whether  or  no  bright  intellects  poured  thoughts  upon  its 
inarticulate  echoes.  Uhland's  ferry-passenger,  who  paid 
triple  price  because  he  had  thought  of  his  wife  and  child 
in  crossing — 

("  Take,  oh  boatman,  thrice  thy  fee, 
Spirits  twain  have  crossed  with  me  ") — 

was  a  conscientious  acknowledger  of  peopled  air.  Of  the 
many  who  come  to  Idlewild,  some  stay  on,  unseen.  It  is 
half  why  now  and  then  another,  who  comes  after,  finds 
the  air  strangely  enchanting. 

But  I  will  add  ink  to  a  quaint  compliment  thrown  on 
the  air  of  Idlewild,  a  day  or  two  ago,  for  the  new  poet, 
Alexander  Smith.  The  one  who  said  it  is  an  entrapper 
of  those  lightning-fancies  which  it  takes  genius  to  arrest 
in  their  flash,  and  his  music  is  full  of  them — the  "  Clock 
Waltz,"  for  example,  where  the  dance  stops  while  the 
clock  strikes  twelve.  It  was  WALLACE,  the  composer, 
the  violinist,  the  pianist — a  king  in  this  realm  of  ear- 
witchery,  but  quite  as  subtle  in  his  originalities  of  thought 
and  language — and  we  were  dangling  our  legs  over  the 
brook,  together,  sitting  on  the  bridge  and  wiling  away 

6 


122  LETTERS      FROM      IDLEWILD. 

the  summer  noon  with  gossip  and  idleness.  I  should  pre 
mise,  by  the  way,  that  Wallace  is  the  most  unconscious 
say  or  of  good  things  whom  I  have  ever  fallen  in  with — 
not  knowing,  apparently,  his  own  utterance  of  the  strang 
est  thought  from  the  expenditure  of  the  same  amount  of 
breath  in  a  respiration.  He  was  speaking  of  some  one 
whose  name  he  could  not  remember.  After  looking  for  a 
perplexed  moment  into  the  foam  dashing  below — "  Call 

him  John  Smi "  ( Smith,  he  was  about  to  say,  but, 

arresting  the  word  between  his  lips,  when  half  pro 
nounced,  he  straightened  himself,  lifted  his  hat,  and  looked 
around  as  if  to  acknowledge  a  sudden  presence) — "  Smith 
is  a  name,  now,"  he  continued,  "  a  poet,  by  Jove  ! — 
Alexander  Smith  ! — But,  as  I  was  saying,  this  man — 
call  him  Jones  " — and  he  went  on  with  his  story,  though 
not  till  after  a  musing  half-instant,  in  which  he  evidently 
was  recalling  to  his  voluptuous  memory  a  delicious  book 
in  which  he  had  (un-professionally)  found  a  revel  for  his 
fancy.  I  do  not  think  he  ever  knew  whether  I  heard  his 
queer  parenthesis,  or  not.  But  "Smith"  would  have 
been  pleased  to  hear  it — and  will  find  it  in  the  air,  if  he 
ever  come  to  Idle  wild. 


NEGLECT     OP     DRESS.  123 


LETTER    XIX. 

Neglect  of  Personal  Appearance  in  Country  Seclusion— Unexploring  Habits  of 
City  People — Dignity  of  Un-damage-able  Dress — Thoughts  on  Cooper's  Man 
sion  being  turned  into  a  Boarding-house — Suggestion  to  Authors,  as  to 
turning  their  Influence  to  better  Account— Letter  from  Cooperstown,  &c.,  &c. 

July  30,  1853. 

THE  dashing  surf  of  city  population  which  ebbs  to  our 
ocean  of  green  leaves  in  June,  reminds  us  of  the  bubbles 
on  sidewalk  shore — the  dress  and  fashion,  at  high  tide, 
which  we  had  well-nigh  forgotten.  It  is  one  of  the  little 
restraints  (or  little  wholesome  reminders — which  you 
please),  of  living  "  within  city  reach."  I  caught  myself 
growing  shabby,  by  the  aid  of  its  inevitable  com 
parison;  and  I  had  really  been  quite  insensible  of  the 
change  as  it  had  come  about.  One  begins  to  be  neglect 
ful  of  dress  as  soon  as  "  folks'-eyes  "  are  taken  off  by  the 
Autumn  departures.  And,  from  that  time  to  Summer 
again,  the  comfort  of  dress  that  may  be  forgotten  with 
one's  breakfast,  becomes  a  habit  difficult  to  unlearn.  It 
is  hard  to  take  boots  and  hats  once  more  in,  among  things 
to  be  thought  of.  The  overcoat  that  has  been  worn  six 
months  for  a  body-coat,  seems  the  tightest  thing  that  is 


124  LETTERS     FROM     IDLE WILD. 

any  way  rational — but  it  would  look  Diogenes-tub-y  to 
persist  in  wearing  what  would  make  strangers  stare. 
Boots  of  which  the  owner  is  but  twice  conscious — their 
first  day's  wear  and  their  last — seem  to  use  up  quite 
enough  of  an  immortal  soul's -amount  of  the  attention  to 
be  given  to  things  on  this  planet;  but  such  boots  as  have 
two  soles  to  be  saved,  besides  the  soul  of  the  wearer  (con 
siderably  more  than  a  trebling  of  one's  grudging  attention 
to  what  is  to  be  saved) — must  be  worn  where  ladies  come 
and  go.  A  cravat  that  can  be  tied  while  watching  a  sun 
rise,  must  be  displaced  by  one  that  takes  as  much  time 
and  thought  as  the  reading  of,  at  least,  two  chapters  of 
the  Bible,  "  with  hymn  and  doxology  " — but  the  loose  tie 
(to  the  eyes  of  the  world  that  never  asks  how  the  time 
gained  by  the  neglect  may  have  been  differently  applied) 
looks  "  hardly  respectable."  2sot  that  I  would  say  a 
word  against  such  "  personal  appearance  "  as  is  graceful 
and  becoming.  Wives  take  more  pride  in  us — children 
respect  us  more — common  people  think  better  of  us,  and 
dogs  are  less  likely  to  bark  at  us — for  a  "  genteel  exte 
rior."  But  all  things  have  something  in  the  opposite 
scale.  And,  for  instance,  with  a  horse  saddled  at  the 
door,  and  a  glorious  morning  going  on  in  the  fields  and 
woods  around,  I  declare  I  find  it  very  difficult  to  lose  the 
half  hour  or  more  which  the  difference  of  dress  requires. 
One  gets  sensitive  about  losing  mornings,  after  getting 


LOW     VALUATION      OF      SCENERY.  125 

a  little  used  to  them  with  living  in  the  country.  Each  one 
of  these  endlessly  varied  daybreaks  is  an  opera  but  once 
performed — a  light  upon  a  stray  cloud  at  sunrise,  perhaps, 
being  like  a  wondrous  passage  of  music  that  may  never  be 
repeated — and  is  this  to  be  lost  for  the  tie  of  a  cravat  ? 

I  daily  see  parties  of  young  gentlemen  and  ladies  who 
are  summering  in  the  country  about  us.  They  would 
enjoy  it,  of  course,  to  the  best  of  their  knowledge  and  con 
venience.  But  the  slopes — the  rocks  in  the  fields,  the 
eminences  within  a  half-hour's  scramble — are  the  points 
from  which  the  delicious  scenery  around  them  is  best 
seen;  and  yet  they  walk  only  upon  the  common  road. 
Our  own  ravine  of  Idlewild — a  gem  of  scenery,  in  its  far- 
down  depths,  which  people  might  well  take  journeys  to 
see — was  scarce  known  to  exist,  by  summer  boarders 
within  half-a-mile  of  it,  till  we  made  it  promenade-able 
with  smooth  paths.  It  is  a  very  simple  problem,  the  glo 
rious  enjoyment  of  all  Nature  has  to  show,  in  one  scale, 
and  a  pair  of  patent  leather  shoes  in  the  other.  As  these 
gentlemen  unconsciously  price  it,  scenery  is  proved  to  be 
dear  at  the  cost  of  a  shoe-scratch.  It  is  the  dread  of 
damage  to  sidewalk-y  boots  and  shoes  (which  English  cus 
toms  declare  to  be  wholly  out  of  taste  as  well  as  out  of 
place  in  the  country),  that  keeps  daintily-shod  city  gen 
tlemen  from  exploring  the  points  of  view  in  these  magni 
ficent  Highlands  of  the  Hudson.  And  they  are  willing  to 


126  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE WILD. 

lose  grace  and  freedom  of  movement  into  the  bargain.  It 
is  a  thick  shoe  alone  that  treads  fairly  and  firmly  on  a 
country  road.  The  gait  that  spares  patent  leather  is  con 
strained  and  unmanly.  I  saw  an  over-dressed  youth  jump 
from  a  wall,  a  day  or  two  since.  He  had  been  sent  into 
the  adjoining  field,  by  the  lady  he  was  with,  to  gather  a 
flower  or  a  blackberry.  But,  as  he  came  to  the  ground, 
there  was  an  anxious  three-dollar-fifty-tude  in  the  way  of 
dividing  a  shock  among  his  joints — an  effort  to  spare  his 
boots — which  must  have  given  a  ludicrous  turn  to  the 
impression  he  was  making  on  the  mind  of  the  lady. 
Would  it  not  be  good  policy  as  well  as  good  philosophy — 
would  it  not  "pay,"  even  for  city  folks — to  dress  plainly 
and  un-damage-ably  when  or.t'of  town  ?  I  wish  it  could 
be  brought  about.  To  think  for  oneself,  if  one  pleases, 
but  to  look  like  other  people  whether  or  no,  is  the  law  of 
a  republic;  and  I  unwillingly  conform  to  our  great  All- 
alike-dom's  superfinery  in  the  country. 

****** 

I  have  been  half  sad,  half  merry,  to-day,  musing  over  a 
letter  I  received.  I  will  add  it  below,  that  it  may  be 
read  merely  for  its  information,  if  the  reader  prefer.  It  is 
dated  at  "  COOPER  HOUSE,  Cooperstown" — the  homestead 
of  our  Pioneer  Imagination,  our  Early-day  Fame  and 
Glory — converted,  at  his  death,  into  a  summer  boar'ding- 
Jiouse,  as  the  public  knows.  There  are  two  feelings 


A      BAPTISMAL      FEE.  127 

stirred  by  this — or  rather  a  feeling  and  a  consideration. 
The  spirit  of  the  family -proud  gentleman — for  that  he  was, 
and  a  patriotic  republican,  too — would  look  mournfully 
back  from  the  shadows  of  Memory-land,  at  this  putting 
of  waiters'  aprons  upon  his  household  gods,  and  setting 
them  to  answer  bells  and  take  sixpences.  His  home  and 
its  ancestral  atmosphere  of  dignity  were  his  passion — 
indulged,  perhaps  we  may  say  without  disrespect,  with 
imprudent  costliness,  since  their  barriers  were  to  be 
broken  through  at  his  death.  I  was  impressed  with  the 
prominence  of  this  feature  of  his  mind,  in  walking  with 
him  through  his  grounds  and  over  his  house,  a  few  sum 
mers  ago.  He  was  cherishing  and  embellishing  the  estate 
— the  manorial  centre  of  Cooperstown — as  if  it  were  never 
to  pass  from  his  family. 

But,  this  is  a  country  where  the  horse  Pegasus  is  not 
admired  unless  drawing  a  cart,  and  where  the  Muses  are 
most  respected  at  the  wash-tub.  We  will  not  weep  over 
it  (unless  we  can  set  up  a  soda-fountain  with  our  spare 
tears) — let  us  take  a  business  view  of  the  matter. 

Should  not  the  authors  themselves  turn  a  penny  out  of 
this  national  disposal  of  literary  fames  ?  Should  not  Irv 
ing  and  Fresco tt  "  charge  "  for  having  hotels  named  after 
them  ?  Would  not  Sunny-side  "  pay"  to  be  got  gradu 
ally  ready  for  a  boarding-house,  and  the  post-mortuum  sale 
anticipated  by  Geoffrey  Crayon  himself — transferable  with 


128  LETTERS     FROM     IDLEWILD. 

furniture  and  associates,  thirty  days  from  his  death. 
Longfellow,  is  a  long-lived  customer,  but  his  mansion  at 
Cambridge  would  make  such  a  "  splendid  place  to  drive 
out  to  and  eat  strawberries,"  that  it  might  "  do  "  to  cut 
down  those  "  Washington  elms,"  and  be  laying  out  the 
beds.  Morris,  at  Undercliff,  I  trust,  has  "  too  long  to 
run."  Hawthorne  should  have  a  cottage  to  return  to, 
that  would  be  more  "  permanent  stock  "  than  his  Consu 
late.  I  will  build  one  for  beloved  Theodore  Fay,  in  a  dell 
of  Idlewild,  with  the  first  symptom  of  his  bringing  home 
the  honors  of  his  Foreign  Embassy  to  grace  its  value. 
The  younger  poets  and  rising  authors  are  a  California 
mine  undug — if  they  did  but  know  it.  Would  not  a  com 
pany  in  Wall  street  "  make  a  good  thing  "  by  hiring 
Curtis  and  the  rest  to  go  and  live  on  "places" — the 
"  stock  "  to  rise  or  fall  as  the  forthcoming  and  future 
celebrity  of  these  men  of  genius  should  make  their  homes 
valuable  for  boarding-houses?  It  is  quite  time  that 
American  genius  recognized  the  nature  of  the  soil  their 
laurels  are  planted  in.  Fame  "  pays  "  over  here.  Let 
other  countries  raise  monuments  and  statues  to  great 
men — a  silly  waste  of  stone,  ice  say,  unless  they  can  be 
Macadamized — though,  by  the  way,  we  clipped  a  passage 
from  the  last  month's  English  Review,  which  reads  a  lec 
ture  to  Poets  on  this  very  point  of  not  turning  themselves 
to  account.  Thus  says  the  writer  :— 


THE     COOPER     HOIPSE.  129 

"  The  contempt  of  practical  men  for  the  poets  is  based  upon  a 
consciousness  that  they  are  not  bad  enough  for  a  bad  world.  To  a 
practical  man  nothing  is  so  absurd  as  the  lack  of  worldly  shrewd 
ness.  The  very  complaint  of  the  literary  life,  that  it  does  not 
amass  wealth  and  live  in  palaces,  is  the  scorn  of  the  practical  man; 
for  he  cannot  understand  that  intellectual  opacity  which  prevents 
the  literary  man  from  seeing  the  necessity  of  the  different  pecuni 
ary  condition.  It  is  clear  enough  to  the  publisher  who  lays  up 
fifty  thousand  a  year,  why  the  author  ends  the  year  in  debt.  But 
the  author  is  amazed  that  he  who  deals  in  ideas  can  only  dine  upon 
occasional  chops,  while  the  man  who  merely  binds  and  sells  ideas, 
sits  down  to  perpetual  sirloin.  If  they  should  change  places,  for 
tune  would  change  with  them.  The  publisher,  turned  author, 
would  still  lay  by  his  hundreds.  The  publishing  author  would 
directly  lose  thousands.  It  is  simply  because  it  is  a  matter  of  pru 
dence,  economy,  and  knowledge  of  the  world." 

And  now  for  the  letter  from  our  friend,  the  lodger  at 
Cooper  House  : — 

"  After  pursuing  a  most  erratic  course  for  the  last  two  mouths, 
jogging  about  hither  and  thither,  sometimes  on  pleasure,  oftencr 
on  business,  jaded,  bruised  and  worn  thin  in  steamboats,  railcars, 
and  stage-coaches ;  alternately  feasted  and  starved  at  good,  bad, 
and  indiiferent  hotels,  I  have  finally,  partly  through  accident,  an 
chored  in  Cooperstown,  and  now  date  from  the  fourth  story  of  the 
Cooper  House,  where  I  shall  tarry  long  enough  at  least  to  shake 
off  the  dust,  grow  cool,  take  a  long  breath,  and  look  around  me. 
Well,  a  word  or  two,  respecting  my  present  harbor.  This  Coo 
per  House  is,  indeed,  a  fine  affair.  Purchased  by  an  enterprising 

6* 


130  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE  WILD. 

gentleman  from  New- York,  it  has  been,  this  spring,  most  expedi- 
tiously  converted  into  a  spacious,  airy,  elegant  hotel  ;  the  proprie 
tor  displaying  an  admirable  taste  and  tact  in  leaving  the  two 
lower  stories  of  the  building  in  their  original  state,  exactly  as 
when  occupied  by  their  late  distinguished  possessor,  J.  Fenimore 
Cooper.  These  apartments,  so  sacred  to  his  memory,  by  retain 
ing  their  identity,  throw  an  additional  charm  and  delight  over  the 
whole  house,  while  a  peculiar  zest  and  local  interest  are  yielded 
to  the  '  Deerslayer,'  and  the  '  Pioneers,'  when  perused  in  the  unal 
tered,  identical  library  of  their  departed  author !  The  grounds 
are  also  untouched,  and  are  wild  and  extensive — bewildering  one 
in  a  perfect  labyrinth  of  serpentine  walks  and  miniature  forests ;  a 
tastefully  constructed  flower-garden,  forming  a  pleasing  supple 
ment.  Indeed,  as  a  summer  retreat,  this  hotel,  for  beauty  of  situ 
ation  and  classic  association,  cannot  be  surpassed.  At  all  events, 
the  view  now  gladdening  my  vision  from  this  window,  can  rarely 
be  excelled  by  one  more  lovely  or  diversified.  How  I  wish  I 
could  paint,  draw,  sketch,  scrawl,  or  even  scribble  you  a  por 
trait  !  To  the  north  stretches  the  lake — beautiful,  and  calm,  and 
bright  with  the  gorgeous  hues  of  the  setting  sun — surrounded  by 
a  perfect  amphitheatre  of  hills,  of  a  bold,  undulating  outline, 
creating  a  scenic  effect  truly  picturesque  and  romantic.  A  per 
fect  landscape — one  of  Nature's  own  masterpieces,,  which  your 
pen  could  adequately  portray  and  eulogize.  Mine  is  feeble,  and 
only  in  the  most  prosaic  terms  can  it  express  my  heartfelt  admi 
ration.  This  lake  is  indeed  a  gem — capital  for  fishing,  admira 
ble  for  sailing,  perfect  for  pic-nics,  exquisite  for  moon-light  tete  a 
tetes  !  Why,  in  the  name  of  all  that's  charming  and  delightful, 
are  you  not  here  this  moment  ?  Quit  your  Idlewild,  or  any  other 
wild,  and  only  truly  rusticate  in  and  around  the  groves  and  moun- 


NATTY      BUMPO'S      CAVE.  131 

tains  of ' Leather  Stocking '  memory!  Your  muse  would  here  be 
nobly  inspired.  Imagination  and  Fancy,  holding  high  carnival  in 
your  brain,  a  volume  of  poems  alone  could  satisfy  and  appease 
the  revellers ! 

"Refreshing  my  memory  with  the  '  Deerslayer,-'  a  few  days 
since,  I  was  seized,  of  course,  with  an  irresistible  desire  to  visit 
'  Natty  Bumpo's '  cave  ;  so,  making  all  needful  inquiries  as  to  the 
route,  I  sallied  forth,  and,  in  due  time,  reached  the  spot.  The  as 
cent  to  the  renowned  cave  is  a  terrible  one,  and  only  after  losing 
my  hat,  my  breath,  my  courage,  and  nearly  my  neck,  did  I  gain 
the  summit,  and  fairly  plant  my  foot,  on  classic  ground !  But  the 
view  here  obtained,  I  found  surpassingly  beautiful,  and  fully 
compensated  for  my  break-neck  scramble.  Seated  upon  a  rock, 
the  cool  breeze  fanning  my  face,  I  abandoned  myself  to  all  the 
luxury  of  a  fairyland  illusion — my  delighted  eye  ranging  over  an 
unbroken  succession  of  mountain,  hill,  dale,  and  valley,  well  cul 
tivated  farms,  and  rich  fields  of  waving  grain, — the  complete 
compass  of  the  lake  including  the  rise  and  graceful  sweep  of  the 
Susquehanna.  Rousing  from  my  reverie,  I  clambered  down  from 
my  dizzy  height,  and  explored  the  interior  of  the  cave,  which  is 
of  no  great  magnitude  ;  found  it  rather  damp  and  solitary,  so  I 
lighted  a  cigar,  by  way  of  cheering  myself,  dedicating  the  curl 
ing  smoke,  as  a  sort  of  grateful  incense  to  old  ' Natty V  memory! 
Finally,  retracing  my  steps  homeward,  I  arrived  in  time  for  din 
ner  ;  myself  rather  fatigued,  my  coat  slightly  torn,  my  hat  much 
battered,  and  my  stomach  a  perfect  vacuum  !  All  of  which  evils 
were  soon  remedied  ;  and  light  indeed  did  I  esteem  them  when 
compared  with  the  pleasures  which  accompanied  their  infliction. 
But  I  weary  your  patience  with  my  raptures.  My  praises  of  this 
mountain  country,  however,  are  justly  due.  My  admiration 


132  LETTERS      FROM     IDLE  WILD. 

continues  unsated,  and  '  scenes  must  be  beautiful  which,  daily 
viewed,  please  daily.' 

"  Hither  repair,  recruit  your  health,  <  and  indulge  the  dream 
of  fancy,  tranquil  and  secure.' 

"  Yours,  sincerely, 

PHIL." 


JUNE     DUPLICATED.  133 


LETTER    XX. 

Timely  Seasons  and  Untimely  Age  in  America— Wild  Glen  so  near  the  Hud 
son—Finding  of  Water  Lilies— Anchoring  a  Lily  in  a  Brook— Name  of 
Moodna,  &c.  &c. 

August  6,  1854. 

THE  frequency  of  our  thunder-claps,  of  late,  seems  to 

have  acted  on  the  seasons  like  an  "  encore  "—for  this  July 

is  but  June  over  again.    The  wonderful  increase  of  bulk  in 

the  trees,  since  the  time  when  they  usually  stop  enlarging 

and  multiplying  their  leaves,  is  a  subject  of  general  remark 

among  the  farmers.    The  foliage  has  come  in  crowds  and 

processions.     The  streams,  too — commonly  losing  their 

fulness  at  this  season — are  now  in  the  loveliest  plumpti- 

tude  of  Spring.     Ah,  could  this  sweet  re-/wie-venescence 

of  stream  and  foliage  be  copied  by  our  country's  flesh  and 

blood — a  country  in  which  people  grow  old  faster  than  in 

any  other,  and  where,  instead  of  repeating  our  June  of 

youth,   we   Autumnify    in    Summer,    and    Wintrify    in 

Autumn,  omitting  seasons  with  a  diseased  hurry  in  which 

there  is  no  justice  to  fruit  or  seed  !     And,  as  to  the 

"  Indian  Summer" — green  old  age— it  blooms  in  Europe 

in  every  homestead,  though  denied  to  their  climate.     We 


134  LETTERS      FROM      IDLEWILD. 

have  it  in  our  climate — but  we  have  no  second  summer  of 
parents  and  grandparents,  blooming  in  vigorous  and  hale 
renewal,  tranquil  and  venerably  beautiful,  after  life's 
stormy  equinox  of  care  !  When  will  old  age,  in  America, 
be  the  long-cherished  honor  and  comfort  to  its  children,  the 
fruition  and  happiness  to  itself,  that  it  is  in  other  lands  ? 

My  cottage,  at  Idlewild,  is  a  pretty  type  of  the 
two  lives  which  they  live  who  are  wise — the  life  in  full 
view,  which  the  world  thinks  all,  and  the  life  out  of  sight, 
of  which  the  world  knows  nothing.  You  see  its  front 
porch  from  the  thronged  thoroughfares  of  the  Hudson;  but 
the  grove  behind  it  overhangs  a  deep-down  glen,  tracked 
but  by  my  own  tangled  paths  and  the  wild  torrent  which 
they  by  turns  avoid  and  follow — a  solitude  which  the 
hourly  hundreds  of  swift  travellers  who  pass  within  echo- 
distance  affect  not  the  stirring  of  a  leaf.  But  it  does  not 
take  precipices  and  groves  to  make  these  dose  remotenesses. 
The  city  has  many  a  one — many  a  wall  on  the  crowded 
street  behind  which  is  the  small  chamber  of  a  life  lived 
utterly  apart.  Idlewild,  with  its  viewless  other  side 
hidden  from  the  thronged  Hudson — its  dark  glen  of 
rocks  and  woods,  and  the  thunder  or  murmur  of  its 
Brook — is  but  this  every  wise  man's  inner  life  "illustrated 
and  set  to  music." 

One  of  the  most  plain-spoken  and  practical  of  our  lady- 
neighbors  was  giving  me  a  direction,  the  other  day,  for 


A      PLEASING      DISCOVERY.  135 

the  safe  imprisoning  of  a  flower  in  this  hidden  ravine ; 
and  it  was  couched  in  so  sweet  a  phrase,  that  it  would 
seem  as  if  the  glen  could  only  be  spoken  of — as  the 
inner  life  it  resembles  can  only  be  written  of — in  poetry. 
I  had  come  in,  rich  and  happy,  from  a  ride — rich  in  the 
discovery  of  a  passionately-loved  fragrance  tributary  to 
the  air  of  Idlewild ;  one,  the  dreamy  deliciousness  of 
which  I  remembered  from  boyhoood,  lamenting  its 
absence,  here,  among  a  wilderness  of  sweets  more  prized. 
/  had  found  water-lilies  near  by — a  pond  full  of  them,  in 
the  very  midst  of  the  nameless  village,*  just  around  the 
bend  of  the  valley.  They  looked  at  home,  though  the 
water  which  embosomed  them  lay  between  two  factories  ; 
for  no  rural  village  of  old  England  is  more  picturesque 

*  Why  not  name  it  after  Its  mother— the  "creek"  that  turns  its  mills? 
MOODNA  is  a  good  honest  word ;  and  so  peculiar,  withal,  that  it  would  avoid  mail 
blunders,  and  work  well.  A  village  with  two  hundred  children  should  surely  be 
providing  them  with  a  name  to  say  where  they  came  from.  As  it  is  the  nearest 
village  to  Idlewild,  I  belong  to  it  myself;  and  I  claim  to  be  spokesman  for  the 
children,  as  one  who  suffers,  with  them,  from  the  prolonged  deferring  of  a  bap 
tism  for  our  whereabout.  As  for  me,  I  must  have  some  token  to  give  of  where  I 
belong — some  name  of  a  place  to  date  a  letter  from.  I  have  once  before  pro 
posed  "Avoca"  (the  meeting  of  waters)— three  streams  meeting  below  the 
village ;  but  we  soon  heard  of  several  Avocas.  MOODNA,  the  traditionary  word 
which  belongs  to  the  stream  it  depends  upon  and  graces,  is  a  better  name  ;  and, 
till  the  Postmaster-General  gives  us  another,  I  shall  venture  (with  your  permis 
sion,  dear  neighbor  villagers !)  to  make  use  of  this.  Idlewikl,  near  Moodna, 
must  be  my  date  for  letters — though  it  is  a  strange  country  where  such  auto- 
geography  should  be  necessary  in  a  village  of  five  hundred  inhabitants. 


136  LETTERS     FROM     IDLE  WILD. 

and  lovely  than  this  ;  and,  under  the  shade  of  the  old 
trees,  is  seen,  after  working  hours,  as  well-dressed  and 
joyous-looking  a  population  as  could  easily  be  found — 
rural  scenery  and  happy  industry  combining  to  form  the 
whole  type  of  the  village,  it  seems  to  me. 

It  was,  of  course,  a  first  thought  to  transplant  one  of 
these  lovely  lilies  to  the  Brook  of  Idlewild — broidering 
its  banks  with  those  slender  and  delicate  white  leaves,  as 
if  with  the  spread  hands  of  infants  scattering  fragrance. 
But,  to  be  the  home  of  anything  so  delicate,  the  brook  is 
too  wild,  at  times.  With  the  chasm  through  which  its 

gentlest  flow  or  its  most  swollen  freshet  must  alike  come 

•• 

— a  succession  of  plunging  cascades,  with  a  descent  of 
two  hundred  feet — it  would  be  rough  work  for  a  lily  in 
the  pond  below.  And  it  was  the  expression  of  this  dread, 
to  the  lady  I  speak  of,  which  drew  out  her  remark. 
"  Oh,"  she  said,  "  the  lily  is  delicate,  but  it  will  stay  if 
you  anchor  it  well."  I  was  simply  to  lay  a  fragment  of 
tho  rude  rock  upon  the  roots  of  the  fragile  flower — but 
the  expression  had  so  sweet  an  inner  rainbow  of  simili 
tude — the  delicate  love  that  can  be  so  transplanted  and 
"  anchored,"  to  bloom  safely  and  fragrantly  in  a  torrent's 
path  !  It  was  one  of  those  poems,  in  a  word,  which  are 
sometimes  uttered  so  unconsciously  in  ordinary  conver 
sation. 


AN     AVALANCHE.  131 


LETTER  XXI. 

Avalanche  or  Storm-King— Idlewild  Ravaged  by  the  Flood— Accidents  to  Per 
sons  and  Destruction  to  Property— House  Laid  Open— Rareness  of  such  Phe 
nomena,  &c.,  &c. 

August  13,1853. 

I  DO  not  see,  in  the  Tribune*  or  other  daily  papers, 
any  mention  of  an  event  which  occupies  a  whole  column 
of  the  outside  page  of  the  highest  mountain  above  West 
Point.  An  avalanche  of  earth  and  stone,  which  has 
seamed,  from  summit  to  base,  the  tall  bluff  that  abuts 
upon  the  Hudson — forming  a  column  of  news  which  is 
visible  for  twenty  miles  and  seen  by  every  traveller  on 
railway  or  steamer — has  thus  reported  a  deluge  we  have 
had — a  report  a  mile  long  and  much  broader  than  Broad- 

*  Begging  pardon  of  the  Tribune— since  this  was  written,  Thursday's  paper 
has  come  to  hand,  containing  the  following  paragraph  :— 

"  There  was  a  great  freshet  in  Orange  County,  on  Monday  afternoon. 
Extensive  damage  was  done  to  buildings  and  farms  on  the  margins  of  streams. 
Canterbury  and  Cornwall  were  the  principal  sufferers.  In  many  places  on  the 
hillsides  the  roads  were  washed  away,  gullies  to  the  depth  of  some  twelve  feet 
being  made.  The  country  in  various  places  presents  the  appearance  of  having 
been  torn  with  an  earthquake.  From  the  steamboat  in  the  neighborhood  of 
Crow's  Nest,  the  banks  of  the  river  had  a  striking,  grand  effect ;  the  water  rush 
ing  from  the  summit  of  the  hills  like  a  cataract,  and  dashing  into  the  Hudson." 


LETTERS      FROM      IDLEWILD. 

way,  of  which  (I  say  again)  there  is  no  corresponding 
mention  in  any  other  journal. 

Seriously,  however  (and  it  is  scarce  kind  or  in  good 
taste,  perhaps,  to  commence  so  triflingly  the  mention  of 
what  has  been  a  severe  calamity  to  our  neighborhood), 
we  have  had  a  deluge  in  the  valley  immediately  around 
us — a  deluge  which  is  shown,  by  the  overthrown  farm- 
buildings  ;  the  mills,  dams  and  bridges  swept  away  ;  the 
well-built  roads  cut  into  chasms  ;  the  destruction  of  horses 
and  cattle,  and  the  imminent  peril  to  life,  to  have  been  a 
phenomenon  quite  beyond  the  warnings  of  previous 

experience.     Covering  so  comparatively  small  a  space a 

mile  or  two  in  breadth— its  results  would  hardly  be  much 
heard  of,  or  thought  credible  by  the  country  around  ; 
yet,  by  the  tenants  of  the  cottages  swept  away,  and  by 
the  many  heavy  sufferers,  in  property,  along  the  courses 
of  the  streams,  it  is  thought  that  few  natural  events  have 
ever  happened,  more  startling  and  calamitous.  It  occur 
red  three  days  since  (on  the  evening  of  August  1st),  and 
a  walk,  to-day,  down  the  valley  which  forms  the  thorough 
fare  between  Cornwall  Landing  and  Canterbury— (or 
rather  a  climb  and  scramble  over  its  gulfs  in  the  road,  its 
upset  barns  and  sheds,  its  broken  vehicles,  drift-lumber, 
rocks  and  rubbish)— would  impress  a  stranger  like  a  walk 
after  the  Deluge  of  Noah.  Idlewild  has  suffered  severely 
in  its  beauty— bridges,  dams  and  embankments  swept* 


DANGER     AND      ESCAPE.  139 

;  green  meadow-glades  covered  with  loose  rocks, 
logs  and  gravel  ;  paths  effaced,  and  noble  old  shade-trees 
barked  and  peeled  by  the  drift-wood,  or  half-prostrated 
and  uprooted — but  the  first  sympathy,  of  course,  is  with 
the  destruction  to  what  is  useful.  Let  us  leave  for  a 
moment,  the  damages  to  what  is  merely  ornamental,  and 
speak  of  perils  to  life  and  interruptions  to  business. 

The  flood  came  upon  us  with  scarce  half  an  hour's 
notice.  My  venerable  neighbor  of  eighty  years  of  age, 
who  has  passed  his  life  here,  and  knows  well  the  workings 
of  the  clouds  among  the  mountains,  had  dined  with  us, 
but  hastened  his  departure  to  get  home  before  what 
"looked  like  a  shower" — crossing,  with  his  feeble  steps, 
the  stream  whose  strongest  bridge,  an  hoar  after,  was 
swept  away  by  the  torrent.  Another  of  our  elderly 
neighbors,  the  principal  merchant  of  Cornwall,  had  a 
much  narrower  escape.  The  sudden  rush  of  water 
alarmed  him  for  the  safety  of  an  old  building  he  uses  for 
his  stable,  and  which  stood  upon  the  bank  of  the  small 
stream  usually  scarce  noticeable  as  it  crosses  the  street 
at  the  landing.  He  had  removed  his  horse,  and  returned 
to  unloose  a  favorite  dog,  tied  in  the  inclosure  ;  but, 
before  he  could  accomplish  it,  the  building  fell.  The 
single  jump  with  which  he  endeavored  to  clear  himself  of 
the  toppling  rafters,  threw  him  into  the  torrent,  and  he 
was  swept  headlong  towards  the  gulf  which  it  had  already 


140  LETTERS     FROM     IDLEWILD. 

torn  in  the  wharf  on  the  Hudson.     His  son  and  two 
others,  who  chanced  to  see  him,  plunged  in  at  this  critical 
moment,  and  succeeded  in  snatching  him  from  destruction. 
Still  another  of  our  most  venerable  citizens,  the  portly  and 
honored  Judge  of  the  district,  was  riding  up  from  Corn 
wall  to  his  residence,  when  the  solid  and  strongly-em 
banked  road  was  swept  away,  before  and  behind  him, 
and  he  had  barely  time  to  unhitch  his  horse  and  make 
his  escape,  leaving   his  carriage   islanded   between   the 
chasms.     A  man  who  was  driving,  with  his  wife  and 
child,  along  our  own  wall  on  the  river-shore,  had  a  yet 
more  fearful  escape— his  horse  suddenly  forced  to  swim, 
and  his  wagon  set  afloat  and  carried  so  violently  against 
a  tree,  by  the  swollen  current  of  Idlewild  Brook,  that  he 
and  his  precious  load  were  thrown  into  the  water,  and 
with  difficulty  reached  the  bank  beyond.     In  one  of  the 
houses,  the  front  of  which  was  swept  away,  were  four 
women  with  two  or  three  children.     They  fled  from  the 
toppling  doorways,  and  took  refuge  under  a  tree  which 
was,  immediately  after,  so  surrounded  by  the  torrent, 
that  they  feared  to  leave  it.     A  passing  neighbor  rescued 
them,  after  a  trying  period  of  suspense.     There  are  vague 
reports  of  other  similar  escapes  and  risks,  but  these  are 
all  which  have  yet  come  definitely  to  my  knowledge;  and 
though  horses  and  cattle  were  drowned,  there  happily  seems 
to  have  been  no  human  life  lost,  among  the  varied  accidents. 


INCIDENTS     OF     THE     STORM.  141 

Of  lesser  incidents,  every  passer-by  has  something  to 
tell.  A  party  of  children  who  were  out  "huckleberry- 
ing  "  on  the  mountain,  were  separated  from  home  by  the 
swollen  brook,  and  one  of  them  nearly  drowned  in  vainly 
attempting  to  cross  it.  Their  parents  and  friends,  out 
all  night  in  search  of  them,  suffered  painfully  from 
anxiety.  An  aged  farmer  and  his  wife,  who  had  been  to 
Newburgh,  "  shopping,"  and  were  returning  with  their 
two-horse  wagon  well  laden  with  goods  for  themselves 
and  neighbors,  attempted  to  drive  over  a  bridge  as  it 
unsettled  with  the  current,  and  were  precipitated  head 
long.  The  old  man  caught  a  sapling,  as  he  went  down 
with  the  flood,  the  old  woman  holding  on  to  his  coat- 
skirts,  and  so  they  struggled  until  their  cries  brought  the 
neighbors  to  their  assistance.  A  gentleman's  horse  and 
wagon  were  overwhelmed  by  the  torrent,  close  to  the 
Cornwall  Landing,  and  swept  into  the  Hudson. 

The  flood  was  at  its  highest  as  night  came  on  ;  and, 
quite  unaware,  myself,  of  what  its  ravages  had  been  in 
the  brook-valley  parallel  to  ours  (of  which  Cornwall 
Landing  is  the  foot),  I  started  for  my  usual  early  ride  on 
horseback  the  next  morning,  supposing  Idlewild  to  have 
been  the  principal  sufferer,  and  deferring  the  survey  of 
my  ruins  and  desolations  till  exercise  and  breakfast  should 
brighten  hope  a  little.  The  sight  of  the  new  and  tremen 
dous  gulf  which  seemed  to  have  split  open  the  side  of  the 


142  LETTERS     FEOM     IDLEWILD. 

mountain  beyond,  drew  me  in  that  direction,  but  I  was 
soon  stopped.  The  road,  our  smoothest  and  most  travel 
led  one,  was  crossed  by  a  chasm,  impassable  except  by 
climbing  on  foot ;  and,  down  the  descent  of  the  valley  lay 
a  succession  of  overthrown  barns  and  sheds,  broken 
vehicles,  mill-wheels,  boards  and  logs,  the  largest  building 
on  the  way  to  the  village  completely  disembowelled,  and 
the  stream  still  coursing  violently  between  its  two  halves 
of  ruins.  I  was  stopped,  as  I  scrambled  along  the  gorge, 
by  a  curious  picture  for  a  common  highway.  The  brick 
front  of  the  basement  of  a  dwelling-house  had  been  torn 
off,  and  the  mistress  of  the  house  was  on  her  hands  and 
knees,  with  her  head  thrust  in  from  a  rear  window,  ap 
parently  getting  her  first  look  down  into  the  desolated 
kitchen  from  which  she  had  fled  in  the  night.  A  man 
stood  in  the  middle  of  the  floor,  up  to  his  knees  in  water, 
looking  round  in  dismay,  though  he  had  begun  to  pick  up 
some  of  the  overset  chairs  and  utensils.  The  fire-place, 
with  its  interrupted  supper-arrangements  ;  the  dresser 
with  its  plates  and  pans,  cups  and  saucers  ;  the  closets, 
and  cupboards  with  their  various  stores  and  provisions, 
were  all  laid  open  to  the  road  like  a  sliced  water-melon, 
Expression  of  faces  and  all,  it  would  have  made  a  subject 
for  Hogarth. 

Of  the  scene  at  Cornwall  (the  mouth  of  the  gorge 
where  the  torrent  found  its  outlet),  I  must  defer  the 


THE     DELUGE     EXPLAINED.  143 

the  description  until  I  am  able  to  speak  with  more  cer 
tainty  of  the  extent  of  the  heavy  damages  to  property — 
but  nothing  could  well  be  more  picturesque  (if  one  may 
admire  picturesque  disaster)  than  the  inhabitants  of  the 
village,  that  morning,  picking  out  their  furniture  and 
fixings  from  the  overset  buildings  and  from  the  bed  of 
the  subsiding  waters.  Every  one,  as  he  waded  and 
worked,  had  his  thrilling  story  of  escape  or  risk  to  tell 
in  a  sentence  ;  and,  losers  as  all  were  by  the  visitation,  I 
could  not  help  remarking  that  there  was  a  keen  excite 
ment  which  amounted  to  a  suppressed  relish  of  its  adven 
tures.  "That  man,"  said  one  of  my  neighbors,  pointing 
to  a  stout,  laboring  Yankee,  of  the  invincible  cut,  "  was 
taken  off  his  legs  last  night."  "  Yes,"  said  the  man,  with 
a  look  of  no-you-don't,  "  but  not  hurt,  Mister  !  I  can  be 
carried  down  stream,  like  any  other  man — but  I  can't  be 
melted  nor  drowned,  nohow  1" 

By  this  storm  and  flood,  common  life  and  long  expe 
rience  were,  for  once,  taken  entirely  by  surprise.  The 
"oldest  inhabitant"  does  not  remember  such  a  deluge  ; 
and  it  was  probably  a  chance  phenomenon  that  might  not 
again  happen  in  a  lifetime — the  aggregation  of  extensive 
masses  of  clouds  into  what  is  sometimes  called  a  "  water 
spout,"  by  the  meeting  of  winds  upon  the  converging  edge 
of  our  bowl  of  Highlands.  The  storm  for  a  whole 
country  was  thus  concentrated,  and  broke  upon  the  sum- 


144  LETTERS     FROM     IDLEWIL'D. 

mit  of  a  single  mountain.  Old  Butter-Hill  was  swept 
of  a  covering  of  soil  and  rocks,  unstirred  before  since  the 
Biblical  Deluge  ;  and  the  two  glens  of  Cornwall  and 
Idlewild — ravines  which  have  been  channelled  out  by  the 
wear  of  waters  for  ages,  but  which,  since  memory,  have 
been  the  freshet-and-drought-varying  beds  of  small  brooks, 
well  studied  and  thought  manageable  by  millers  and 
farmers — were  filled  in  one  hour,  as  if  by  the  return  of 
long-post  powerful  rivers  to  beds  which,  in  their  imme 
morial  absence,  had  become  cultivated  valleys. 


MILK      IN      DANGER.  145 


LETTER  XXII. 

Gentleman  towing  a  Cow— Daughter  taken  out  in  the  Storm  to  see  the 
Freshet— The  Power  of  a  Flood— Lofty  Bridge  Swept  Away— Extent  of  Deso 
lation,  &c.,  &c. 

August  20,  1853. 

THE  Idlewild  experiences,  during  the  one-hour  flood 
which  caine  back  like  an  old  love,  last  week  (like  a 
re-awakened  river,  that  is  to  say,  rushing  madly  back  to 
a  deserted  valley,  where  its  return  had  been  long  thought 
impossible),  were  of  mingled  sublimity  and  inconvenience. 
My  first  intimation  that  there  was  anything  uncommon 
in  the  brook,  was  the  sight  of  a  gentleman  in  a  boat, 
towing  a  cow  across  the  meadow,  under  our  library 
window — a  green  glade,  seldom  or  never  flooded,  and  in 
the  centre  of  which  our  own  cow  had  been  all  day, 
tethered  and  grazing.  Our  neighbor's  evening's  milk  had 
been  evidently  rescued  from  a  torrent;  but  where  it  came 
from  (as  it  had  just  begun  to  rain),  or  what  had  become 
of  the  member  of  my  family  who  had  been  thus  subjected 
to  a  restraint  that  made  no  provision  for  extraordinary 
circumstances,  I  was  puzzled  to  conjecture.  The  roar 
7 


146  LETTERS      FROM      IDLEWILD. 

from  the  foaming  precipices  of  the  glen  had  been  heard 
by  us  all,  but  thought  to  be  thunder.  So  sudden  a  dis 
appearance  of  cow  and  meadow,  everything  under  water 
except  the  trees,  was  a  startling  change  to  take  place 
between  two  looks  out  of  the  window. 

The  Opera,  of  which  this  was  the  overture,  was  too 
attractive  to  be  missed.  The  nested  birds,  who  could 
look  down  from  their  private  boxes,  and  my  little 
daughter,  with  her  opera  toilette  of  India-rubber  cape 
and  short  petticoats,  were  all  of  the  audience  except 
myself,  probably,  who  were  likely  to  appreciate  the 
acting  and  music — though  "the  million"  were  there,  in 
the  shape  of  rain-drops  as  big  as  thimbles,  filling  gallery 
and  parterre  in  crowds  somewhat  unceremonious  and 
uncomfortable. 

But — what  a  drawing-up  of  the  curtain,  as  we  made 
our  way  along  the  overhanging  lobbies  of  the  glen!  The 
rocky  chasm — in  which  the  brook,  with  any  freshet  I  had 
heretofore  seen,  was  still  only  a  deep-down  stream — 
seemed,  now,  too  small  for  the  torrent.  Those  giddy 
precipices,  on  which  the  sky  seems  to  lean,  as  you  stand 
below,  were  the  foam-lashed  sides  of  a  full  and  mighty 
river.  The  spray  broke  through  the  tops  of  the  full- 
grown  willows  and  lindens.  As  the  waves  plunged 
against  the  cliffs,  they  parted  and  disclosed  the  trunks 
and  torn  branches  of  the  large  trees  they  had  over- 


POWER      OP     THE      FLOOD.  147 

whelmed  and  were  bearing  away  ;  and  the  earth-colored 
flood,  in  the  wider  places,  was  a  struggling  mass  of 
planks,  timber,  rocks,  and  roots — tokens  of  a  tumultnous 
ruin  above,  to  which  the  thunder-shower  pouring  around 
us  gave  but  a  feeble  clue.  With  the  unyielding  and  con 
fining  sides  of  the  glen — two  hundred  feet  of  descent 
even  within  the  short  space  of  our  own  cottage  grounds, 
all  walled  in  with  precipices  of  sheer  rock — the  swollen 
deluge  seemed  infuriated  to  madness.  With  all  my  memo 
ries  of  swift  Trenton  and  slow  Niagara,  I  had  never 
before  received  such  an  impression  of  the  power  of  a 
flood.  A  heavy-limbed  willow,  which  overhung  a  rock 
on  which  I  had  often  sat  to  watch  the  freshets  of  spring, 
rose  up  while  we  looked  at  it,  and  with  a  surging  heave, 
as  if  lifted  by  an  earthquake,  toppled  back,  and  was 
swept  rushingly  away.  One  old  tree,  dead  for  many  a 
winter,  but  whose  tall  and  leafless  trunk  stood  like  a 
steeple  against  our  most  giddy  cliff — its  roots  apparently 
never  reached  by  the  crest  of  the  most  swollen  freshet — 
was  playing  backwards  and  forwards  among  the  trees 
that  overhung  it,  lashed  like  a  willow-twig  by  a  child's 
hand.  The  twilight  was  closing  in  too  fast  for  me  to 
await  its  downfall,  but  it  was  doubtless  near.  There 
was  no  trace  of  it,  nor  of  the  mingled  earth  and  rock  in 
which  it  was  imbedded,  the  morning  after. 

In  throwing  a  rude  foot-bridge  across  one  of  the  rapids 


148  LETTERS      FROM      IDLEWILD. 

of  our  cascades,  I  had  given  it  (by  the  advice  of  an  old 
resident)  what  was  thought  to  be  rather  an  imaginary 
elevation — some  ten  feet  above  the  highest  remembered 
surface  of  the  stream.  But,  as  my  little  companion 
turned  the  corner  of  the  rocky  shelf-path  which  leads 
around  the  cliff  to  the  ledge  on  which  the  bridge  rested, 
I  drew  her  suddenly  back.  The  foam  was  plunging 
against  the  upper  limit  of  the  precipice,  the  body  of  the 
flood  high  above  where  the  bridge  had  stood,  and  every 
vestige  of  it,  of  course,  long  since  swept  away.  Over  the 
dams  and  embankments,  paths  and  rock-seats  upon  which 
I  had  expended  love,  money,  and  labor  for  a  year,  the 
heaviest  body  of  the  flood  now  poured,  uninterrupted. 
The  glen  which  I  had  made  passable  and  habitable,  was 
the  wilderness  of  a  torrent  scarce  approachable ;  and, 
to-day,  with  the  flood  fallen,  and  the  grandeur  of  its 
desolation  embellishing  it  no  more,  it  is  indeed  a  desert 
to  my  eye.  The  green  spots  are  covered  with  loose 
stones  and  drift-wood  ;  the  noble  trees,  stripped  of  their 
bark,  are  already  withering  in  their  massive  tops  ;  rocks 
that  were  velveted  with  tendrils  and  moss,  are  now  bare 
or  bleak  with  leafless  stems,  and  the  broad  meadows 
below  are  wastes  of  gravel  and  flood-rubbish.  The  stars 
are  still  above  us,  the  mountains  still  around  us,  the 
brook  singing  as  if  nothing  had  happened — but  it  will 
take  years  to  make  Idlewild  as  beautiful  again. 


AWFUL     CALAMITY.  149 


LETTER   XXIII. 

Young  Lady  killed  by  Lightning  at  our  Neighbor's  House— Another  Paralyzed- 
Careless  General  Attention  to  such  Fearful  Events,  &c.,  &c. 

August  27, 1853. 

A  STARTLING  calamity  breaks  in  upon  this  limited  history 
of  what  happens  at  a  home.  Close  to  our  gate— at  the 
door  of  one  of  our  nearest  and  most  valued  neighbors — a 
lovely  girl  was  yesterday  struck  dead  by  lightning.  A 
friend  who  stood  with  her  at  the  moment,  a  young  married 
lady  whom  she  had  come  to  visit,  was  a  greater  sufferer, 
in  being  prostrated  by  the  same  flash,  and  paralyzed  from 
the  waist  downwards— her  life  spared  at  the  cost  of  tor 
tures  inexpressible.  It  is  hard  to  make  a  record  of  this 

fitly,  I  mean— for  the  saddened  reading  of  those  around 

us,  and  the  careless  reading  of  the  public  at  large.  It 
was  paragraphed  in  the  city  papers,  and  read  this  morn 
ing  by  thousands  who  have  already  forgotten  it.  Yet  to 
us,  who  saw  the  flash  and  trembled  at  the  thunder— to 
us,  who,  but  just  before,  had  seen  the  victim,  surrounded 
by  friends,  happy  and  admired— the  hush  and  gloom  of 
the  calamity  now  brooding  around  us,  and  a  feeling  as  if 


150  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE WILD. 

we  must  still  grasp  and  fold  our  own  precious  ones  shel- 
teriugly  to  our  bosoms — it  is  an  event  for  which  common 
and  passing  mention  is  not  enough.  Strong  words  crowd 
up  to  tell  it,  though,  to  the  hurrying  world,  with  the 
claims  of  new  and  present  moments  beckoning  them  on, 
this  mentioning  of  an  "accident"  again  is  but  repetition 
— a  recalling  of  what  was  flung  to  the  Past  with  yes 
terday. 

The  household  from  which  this  finger  of  lightning 
plucked  its  victim,  numbered,  at  the  time,  as  many  as 
fifty-six  persons  ;  and  they  were  mostly  in  sight,  grouped 
about  upon  the  grounds  in  front  of  the  house,  the  sultry 
heat,  at  the  close  of  the  Sabbath  afternoon,  having 
brought  every  one  out  of  doors.  The  venerable  mansion, 
opened  in  summer  to  boarders,  has  been  the  residence  of 
the  same  family  almost  from  time  immemorial.  It  is  a 
large-spread  and  picturesque  old  house,  so  buried  in  trees 
and  vines  that  you  can  hardly  see  a  corner  of  it,  and  its 
aged  but  active  and  beloved  mistress  (a  widow  of 
eighty,  and  sister  of  the  venerable  friend  and  neighbor 
of  whom  I  have  before  spoken)  was  seated  under  the 
willows  which  form  the  avenue  to  the  front  porch,  and 
fell  backwards  with  the  shock  of  the  fatal  flash.  The 
troop  of  children,  several  of  her  own  grandchildren  among 
them,  who  were  around  her  upon  the  benches  and  green 
sward,  had  been,  but  a  moment  before,  out  upon  the 


THE      SWIFT-WINGED      SUMMONS.  151 

grassy  hillock  where  the  stroke  fell,  but  were  sent  towards 
the  house  to  avoid  the  coming  shower.  The  telegraph- 
wires,  which  collected  and  pointed  the  stroke,  hung  in  a 
relaxed  curve  within  six  feet  of  the  summit  of  this  hil 
lock  (a  favorite  play-ground  for  the  children),  and  the 
fluid  here  entered  the  ground,  though  the  adjoining 
posts  and  wires  for  half  a  mile  were  shivered  and  torn 
apart. 

The  sky  was  darkening,  but  scarce  a  drop  of  rain  had 
yet  fallen.  Miss  Gilmour  had  been  chatting  with  a  hand 
some  boy-admirer,  but  left  him  to  take  aside  the  con 
fidential  friend  whose  guest  she  was,  that  she  might  read 
her  a  letter.  It  was  from  her  mother  (a  widow  with 
this  only  daughter),  and  related  to  some  visit  about 
which  the  moment  was  seized  for  a  girlish  taking  of 
counsel.  They  passed  out  of  the  gate,  crossed  the  road 
to  be  out  of  hearing,  and  stood  under  the  telegraph-wire, 
where  the  letter  was  opened.  Her  lips  were  scarce 
parted  to  read,  when  the  flash  came — an  arrow  of  intense 
light,  shooting  along  the  wire  and  blinding  those  who 
stood  watching  them.  A  scream  of  piercing  agony  arose 
with  the  crash  of  the  thunder.  A  look  towards  the  glare 
— one  of  those  whom  they  had  seen  a  moment  before, 
lying  prostrate,  the  other  upon  her  knees  with  hands 
struggling  wildly  upwards — and  the  truth  was  revealed. 
From  joyous  life,  health  and  beauty,  every  pulse  beating 


152  LETTERS      FROM      IDLEWILD. 

with  the  promise  of  as  happy  a  morrow,  that  young 
creature  had  been  summoned  in  an  instant, 

So  complete  an  extinction  of  life  in  an  instant  is  doubt 
less  a  merciful  sparing  of  the  usual  pain  of  death.  The 
countenance  of  Miss  Gihnour  showed  no  suffering.  Faint 
purple  streaks  followed  the  veins  upon  the  left  side,  and 
the  skin  was  slightly  broken  upon  the  left  hand  and  the 
left  foot  ;  but  the  person  was  not  otherwise  disfigured. 
A  recovery  from  a  partial  injury  by  lightning,  however, 
is  probably  as  severe  pain  as  could  well  be  endured.  The 
escape  of  the  electric  fluid  from  the  body  suddenly  sur 
charged  with  it,  is  described  by  the  surviving  companion 
of  Miss  Gilmour  as  a  fierce  and  scorching  issue  of  fire 
from  every  pore.  With  what  power  of  thought  remained 
to  her  she  imagined  it  to  be  the  sudden  beginning  of  the 
anguish  inconceivable  of  another  world.  The  paralysis 
of  her  limbs,  though  complete  for  a  while,  yielded  ulti 
mately  to  medical  treatment,  and  she  is  likely  to  regain 
the  use  of  them,  partially  at  least  ;  though  the  nervous 
system  is  doubtless  shattered  beyond  remedy.  How 
difficult  it  must  be,  through  the  tears  of  such  suffering 
and  sorrow  as  are  crowded  together  by  an  event  like 
this,  to  see  where  those  recompenses  are,  which,  philoso 
phers  tell  us,  make  human  allotments  equal  ! 


A      DILEMMA.  153 


LETTER  XXIV. 

Dilemma  as  to  Placing  Settees— Double  Service  of  out-of-door  Seats— Difference 
Between  Appreciation  of  Landscape  by  Men  and  by  Women — Right  of  all 
Strangers  to  enter  Beautiful  Grounds— Favor  of  being  Figures  on  the  Land 
scape — &c.,  &c. 

September  3,1853. 

WHETHER  to  be  beautiful  or  to  control  beauty — 
whether  to  be  admired  or  to  enjoy  that  which  is  admira 
ble — are  questions  I  have  been  puzzled  to  settle  this 
morning,  not  for  young  gentlemen  and  ladies  commencing 
their  destiny,  but  for  a  half  dozen  out-of-door  settees 
The  angel  of  arrangement  who  decides  it  for  us — (making 
some  of  us  plain  and  obscure  but  blissfully  appreciative, 
and  some  of  us  conspicuous  or  beautiful  and  that  is  all) 
—was  never  more  bothered  than  I,  nor  ever  wished  more 
heartily  that  the  unconscious  beginners  had  sense  enough 
to  make  the  choice  judiciously  for  themselves.  On  one, 
spot  of  my  lawn,  the  seat  would  itself  be  a  picture  ;  on 
another  spot,  it  would  itself  be  almost  out  of  sight,  but 
would  command  a  good  point  of  view  for  those  who 
should  sit  upon  it. 

Half  the  dilemma  is  in  the  unusual  beauty  of  the  set- 
1* 


154  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE  WILD. 

tees.  As  when  an  Earl  and  his  Countess  play  ushers  to 
the  goods  and  merchandise  which  England  sends  to  the 
Exhibition,  one  is  terribly  be-Sedgwicked  to  know  how 
to  dispose  of  so  unaccustomed  a  feature.  It  is  the  edge 
of  a  new  epoch,  however — the  useful  enlisting  the  orna 
mental — and  the  Berrians  are  teaching  us,  with  their  vast 
warehouse  of  similar  wonders,  that  utility  and  beauty 
may  be  linked  in  everything.  Lady  Ellesmere  and  601 
Broadway  are  on  the  crest  of  the  same  wave  of  progress. 
Rural  seats,  I  find,  may  be  made  to  perform  double 
service.  They  are  sign-posts  saying,  "  Stop  here,  where 
the  view  is  beautiful " — giving  the  stranger,  at  the  same 
time,  a  chance  to  repose.  And  this  need  not  be  credited 
altogether  to  a  spirit  of  accommodation.  One  gets  jealous 
for  the  beauty  of  grounds  he  has  laid  out,  and  landscapes 
to  which  views  have  been  opened  through  his  trees  and 
shrubbery.  As  I  sit  writing,  now,  at  my  window  (a 
covert  one,  crowded  in  between  an  astonished  hemlock 
and  a  yellow  pine),  I  see  a  party  of  ladies  from  one  of 
the  boarding-houses  in  the  neighborhood.  They  are 
taking  their  usual  stroll  after  breakfast — their  broad 
straw  hats,  flowing  dresses  and  gay  parasols  embellishing 
the  foreground  of  my  prospect  with  an  effect  that  Kensett's 
pencil  could  scarce  improve.  They  are  of  course  "  charm 
ing  women"  (judging  by  charming  ones  I  have  known 
who  were  similarly  dressed),  and  I  could  not  sit  patiently 


WOMEN      LOVE      THE      BEAUTIFUL.  155 

here,  if  there  were  any  probability  that  they  would  pass 
those  three  openings  in  the  lawn,  without  stopping  to 
look  out  upon  the  river.  But,  thank  Heaven,  there  is  no 
probability  of  it.  Thank  Heaven,  there  is  scarce  such  a 
thing  as  a  woman  insensible  to  the  beauties  of  Nature. 
Men  are — often  I  have  had  curious  opportunity  to  observe 
the  difference,  living  where  I  do.  Fifty  strangers  a  day, 
perhaps,  ramble  through  this  open-air  gallery  of  pictures; 
and,  knowing  every  turning  of  a  path  where  they  should 
stop  to  see  a  landscape,  I  observe  easily  whether  they 
are  walking  with  Nature  or  with  themselves  only.  One 
man  out  of  three  strolls  past  the  different  openings  to 
the  glen  and  river  without  turning  his  head;  while,  in  the 
whole  summer,  I  have  scarce  seen  one  lady  pass  them, 
who  did  not  loiter,  lift  her  hand  to  point  into  the  distance, 
or  make  some  exclamation  of  pleasure.  Such  love  of 
beauty  is  a  getting  ready  for  Heaven,  I  more  and  more 
believe.  Women  are  better  than  we. 

I  may  as  well  take  the  opportunity,  by  the  way,  to 
say  a  word,  here,  upon  a  point  that  seems  to  be  variously 
understood  in  our  new  country.  Strangers,  coming  to 
Idlewild,  often  send  to  the  cottage-door,  to  inquire 
"  whether  a  stroll  through  the  glen  would  be  any  intru 
sion."  A  beautiful  boy — so  beautiful,  that,  as  he  stood 
upon  a  rock  by  one  of  the  water-falls,  he  left  a  picture 
there  which  the  sight  of  the  rock  will  always  recall  to  me 


156  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE  WILD. 

— said  he  had  "  often  wanted  to  stroll  through  the  glen, 
but  that  his  uocle,  with  whom  he  had  driven  past  the 
gate,  would  not  go  into  any  man's  grounds  with  whom  he 
was  not  acquainted."  Why,  my  sweet  fellow,  it  would 
be  time  for  a  new  deluge,  if  any  bright  spot  on  the  sur 
face  of  the  world  could  be  so  shut  from  you  !  No  !  no  ! 
There  is  no  such  "  right  of  property  "  possible  in  a  repub 
lic.  Fence  out  pigs,  we  may — if  we  know  how,  and  no 
body  leaves  the  gate  open — but,  to  fence  out  a  genial 
eye  from  any  corner  of  the  earth  which  Nature  has  lov 
ingly  touched  with  that  pencil  which  never  repeats  itself 
— to  shut  up  a  glen  or  a  waterfall  for  one  man's  exclusive 
knowing  and  enjoying — to  lock  up  trees  and  glades,  shady 
paths  and  haunts  along  rivulets — it  would  be  an  em 
bezzlement  by  one  man  of  God's  gift  to  all.  A  capitalist 
might  as  well  curtain  off  a  star,  or  have  the  monopoly  of 
an  hour.  Doors  may  lock,  but  out-doors  is  a  freehold  to 
feet  and  eyes. 

And — it  seems  to  me — the  favor  is  on  the  other  side 
The  figures  in  a  landscape  are  half  its  beauty. 
"Grounds"  are  embellished  by  groups,  and  by  waving 
dresses  and  moving  forms,  to  a  degree  a  painter  well 
understands.  Idle  wild  (I  am  eager  to  say)  is  never  so 
lovely  as  when  its  tangled  wood-paths,  and  rocky  laby 
rinths,  lawn-walks  and  avenues,  meadow-glades  and  rustic 
seats  are  alive  with  the  boys  from  the  school  near  by, 


MOVING     PICTURES.  151 

and  with  the  gentlemen  and  ladies,  nurses  and  children, 
of  our  neighborhood  so  populous  in  summer.  I  look  from 
my  window,  or  from  the  crags  and  terraces  which  give 
glimpses  of  the  glen,  and  see  pictures  which  these  uncost 
ly  statues  and  graceful  moving  objects  endlessly  vary. 
The  gain  is  mine. 


158        LETTERS   FROM   IDLE WILD. 


LETTER   XXY. 

A  Wet  September— Effect  on  Trees— Freshets— Dam-building— Nature's  Lesson 
in  Water-power,  &c.,  &c. 

September  10,  1853. 

BY  the  almanac,  September  is  upon  us — but  the  trees 
seem  quite  confused  as  to  the  time  of  year.  So  much  wet 
weather  has  br'ought  back  April  again.  The  elms,  at  least, 
are  putting  out,  for  a  second  time,  their  demonstrations  of 
tender  green — a  midsummer  budding  which  I  had  thought 
denied  to  all  nature's  productions  except  well  preserved 
gentlemen  and  ladies.  How  these  faintly  verdant  and 
scarce  developed  new  leaves,  which  are  thus  venturing  out 
from  the  edges  of  the  old  branches,  are  to  encounter  the 
rough  handling  of  the  October  frost  that  will  soon  be 
upon  them,  I  have  some  curiosity  to  see.  Will  they 
pinch  and  wrinkle  up  with  a  sudden  paralysis,  or  will 
they  brighten  into  the  gloomy  colors  of  Autumn,  and  die 
off  gracefully  and  by  willing  gradations,  like  leaves  that 
have-  properly  observed  times  and  seasons  ? 

I  notice  that  the  hemlocks  have  also  had  a  second  bud 
ding.  The  evergreens,  generally,  have  thriven  beyond 


TAMING      A      FRESHET.  159 

all  remembered  precedent,  with  the  continued  wetness  ; 
and  the  white  pines,  particularly,  have  spread  their  new 
tassels  into  such  enormous  brooms  as  to  be  the  subject  of 
common  remark  among  the  farmers.  There  are  trees 
which  need  more  sunshine,  however.  The  chestnuts  and 
oaks  have  not  attained  more  than  half  their  usual  thick 
ness  of  leaves  this  summer.  The  butternuts  are  prema 
turely  withering.  Maples  and  birches  look  like  Novem 
ber  already.  Half  the  inhabitants  of  the  woods  at  least 

need  something  warmer  than  water,  occasionally. 
*  *  *  #  *  *  * 

Freshets  do  a  great  deal  of  work  ;  and  it  has  been 
rather  surprising  to  me,  this  summer,  living  for  the  first 
time  on  the  edge  of  so  tempestuous  a  torrent-path,  that 
the  taming  and  getting  of  this  irregular  but  most  efficient 
power  into  harness,  is  not  more  studied  by  those  who  suf 
fer  so  severely  by  it  while  unsubdued.  The  flood,  of 
which  I  recorded  the  ravages  a  week  or  two  ago,  is  esti 
mated  to  have  injured  property,  in  the  two  glens  through 
which  the  water-spout  discharged  itself,  to  the  amount  of 
twenty  thousand  dollars.  Yet  it  did  what  one  of  my 
neighbors  calls  a  "  a  five-hundred  dollar  job  "  for  me — 
a  job  I  have  often  calculated  the  cost  of,  and  relinquished 
as  too  expensive,  but  which  I  supposed  could  only  be  done 
by  the  patient  labor  of  men  and  oxen.  Had  I  known  as 
much  of  freshet-power,  and  the  way  it  works,  as  I  now 


160  LETTERS      FROM      IDLEWILD. 

do,  I  could  have  pre-arranged  the  "job"  which  is  thus 
done  accidentally — could  have  set  a  trap,  that  is  to  say, 
for  a  cloud-team,  that  would  draw  more  stone  for  me  in  a 
night  (for  nothing)  than  an  ox-team  would  draw  in  six 
months  at  three  dollars  a-day. 

While  I  am  making  these  industrial  statistics  of  the 
money-saving  and  stone-drawing  uses  of  water,  the  Tri 
bune  (of  August  31)  comes  to  hand,  containing  an  erro 
neous  statement  as  to  the  result  of  a  lesser  employment 
of  the  same  element  by  me.  Thus  says  the  Washington 
correspondent  of  our  leading  daily  paper  : — 

"  The  President  is  fond  of  display,  and  is  rather  foppish  in  his 
tastes  and  style  of  dress.  For  instance,  he  has  his  hair  oiled  and 
curled  after  the  fashion  of  N.  P.  Willis,  and  frequently  receives 
visitors  in  the  morning  in  an  embroidered  tunic,  or  semi-robe  de- 
chambre,  such  as  is  worn  by  the  flash  and  fancy  men  of  New  York, 
supposed  and  said  to  be  kept  by  women.  His  taste  for  dress  and 
equipage  may  be  traced  also  to  the  company  he  keeps.  Pierce 
Butler,  the  ex-husband  of  Fanny  Kemble,  is  his  most  intimate 
friend  and  associate,  and,  next  to  Caleb  Gushing  and  the  ladies, 
occupies  more  of  his  time  and  attention  than  anything  else." 

Now,  I  may  not  only  rescue  the  waters  of  Idlewild 
from  the  reproach  of  setting  an  example  to  the  Chief  Ma 
gistrate  which  is  in  any  way  artificial  or  effeminate,  but  it 
may  also  furnish  Mr.  Bancroft  with  an  historical  item  as 
to  the  economy  and  simplicity  of  republican  models,  if  I 


THREE      FACTS.  161 

record  three  facts  : — First.  The  humble  head  which  his 
Excellency  the  President  is  thus  authentically  declared 
to  have  selected  for  his  imitation,  has  hitherto  known  no 
external  culture  or  embellishment  beyond  a  daily  souse  in 
cold  water — never,  to  my  knowledge,  having  been  touched 
by  oil,  pomatum,  curling  fluid,  curling-tongs,  or  other  on- 
guent,  art  or  emollient.  Second.  It  has  never  known  even 
the  permitted  luxury  of  hair-dresser  or  barber,  having 
been  cut  from  boyhood  till  now,  whenever  and  wherever 
it  was  inconveniently  long,  by  scissors  in  my  own  hands. 
Third.  Its  daily  officiation  as  a  model  for  the  President 
(though  I  was  wholly  unaware,  hitherto,  of  having  ever  been 
seen  by  his  Excellency)  is  performed  without  crest,  plume, 
or  livery,  it  being  known  to  friends  and  neighbors  by  the 
covering  of  a  straw  hat — which  straw  hat,  I  may  add,  is 
now  near  the  close  of  its  wear  for  a  second  summer,  and 
was  bought  in  the  village  of  Newburgh  for  eighteen  cents. 

Dear  friends  of  the  Tribune  (P.  S.),  I  should  like  to 
be  believed  to  grow  old.  Willing  to  serve  my  country 
in  any  way,  I  am  honored  to  have  the  outside  of  my  head 
chronicled  as  a  copy  for  the  President,  though  I  would 
rather  it  were  the  inside  that  were  a  copy  for  the  school 
boy.  If  you  will  strew  my  secluded  path  with  mistaken 
roses,  however,  I  must  be  excused  for  such  drops  of  otto- 
biography  as  the  truth  compels  me  to  distil. 

But  let  me  describe  my  experiences  of  freshet-power  : — 


162  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE  WILD. 

The  blemish  in  the  beauty  of  Idlewild,  when  I  first 
began  to  track  it  with  a  path,  was  a  spot  where  the  two 
precipitous  walls  of  the  ravine  widened  at  a  ford.  It  had 
come  very  nearly  being  the  gem  of  the  scenery  for  twenty 
miles  around — a  green  terrace  jutting  out  from  the  preci 
pice  on  either  side  like  two  sites  of  cottages,  vis-a-vis,  a 
chasm  between  and  darkly  wooded  cliffs  rising  behind — but 
in  the  far-down  bottom,  at  low  water,  lay  a  shallow  pool. 
With  the  spread  of  the  channel,  the  brook  here  lost  its 
swiftness,  and  the  retarded  ripple  left  an  ooze  which  there 
was  no  time  (between  freshets)  to  grass — a  frame  of  rock 
and  foliage  around  a  picture  of  mud. 

How  remedy  this  defect  ? — for  it  was  a  daily  fret  to  my 
eye.  I  sought  my  most  trusted  Egeria — shirt-sleeve  ad 
vice.  Dam-builders  and  wall-layers,  pickers  and  pilers, 
took  a  look  at  it.  The  "  prettiest  thing,"  as  they  ex 
pressed  themselves,  would  be  to  build  out  the  lower  ter 
race,  so  as  to  shove  the  stream  up  against  the  opposite 
wall — confining  it  so  that  its  force  would  perpetually  clean 
its  channel,  while,  at  the  same  time,  the  terrace  would  be 
extended  to  "  quite  a  lot."  And,  with  the  deep-down 
softness  of  light  upon  this  hidden  lawn — a  table  with  a 
cloth  of  green  velvet  at  the  bottom  of  a  well — I  longed 
for  this  perfecting  of  my  Paradise.  But  the  cost !  With 
the  headway  of  descent  with  which  the  flood  sometimes 
came  to  that  opening,  Windsor  Castle  would  scarce  be 


163 

"  rocks  enough  to  stop  it."  Oxen  alone  could  move  the 
material  that  would  be  required,  and  "  five-hundred  loads 
upon  a  stone-boat  wouldn't  begin  to  be  enough."  And 
where  to  get  the  stone,  and  how  to  draw  it  over  those 
crags  and  precipices  ! 

No,  we  must  do  the  best  thing — build  a  little  dam  fre- 
low,  and  cover  the  ooze  with  still  water.  It  cost  a  trifle 
compared  with  the  estimate  for  the  other  job — twenty 
dollars,  perhaps.  But  a  pond  may  be  too  small  for 
poetry.  The  picturesque  becomes  puddle-esque  (does  it 
not,  Kensett  ?)  when  reduced  to,  say,  less  than  an  acre. 
In  water's  beauty,  as  in  that  of  women,  tranquillity  is  a 
grace  for  large  surfaces — small  bodies  of  either  looking 
best  in  motion.  I  had  only  negatived  a  defect  by  putting 
the  mud  out  of  sight  with  my  little  pond,  leaving  the 
splendid  capability  of  what  it  might  be  (with  swift  water 
around  the  rock  edge  of  that  hidden  lawn)  wholly  unde 
veloped. 

But  nature  was,  meantime,  contriving  a  lesson  for  us. 
Over  my  small  dam,  spanning  the  breadth  of  the  ravine, 
the  stream  cascaded  in  an  even  and  indolent  sheet — no 
wise  head  having  suggested  to  me,  that,  if  it  were  opened 
in  the  middle,  like  the  nose  of  a  pitcher,  the  escaping 
water  would  leave  the  two  sides  bolder  for  a  freshet-trap, 
thus  stopping  the  rocks  which  might  else  tumble  over. 
And  with  the  first  rush  of  the  torrent  (from  the  water- 


164  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE  WILD. 

spout  that  broke  recently  with  such  unprecedented  volume 
in  our  mountains),  a  gigantic  tree  came  down  end-wise, 
like  a  catapult,  taking  out  the  middle  of  my  dam  as  if 
discharged  at  a  target,  and  so  forming  it  into  the  unsug- 
gested  assistance  which  the  freshet  required.  It  was  a 
flood,  indeed.  I  have  elsewhere  described  it.  The  mis 
chief  it  did  to  my  paths  and  bridges,  roads  and  meadows, 
was  great.  But  it  brought  down  the  five-hundred  cart-loads 
of  rocks  that  I  wanted,  and  (with  a  check  from  the  dam- 
trap  of  which  I  have  just  spoken)  piled  them  evenly  and 
solidly  over  the  area  of  the  pond — enlarging  my  ter 
race  with  stone  enough  to  build  a  cathedral,  and  walling 
up  the  scattered  brook  in  a  deep  and  rocky  channel  at  the 
foot  of  the  precipice.  It  needs  but  earthing  and  grass 
ing  now,  to  complete  a  picture  which  the  artist's  imagina 
tion  could  scarce  have  conjured.  But  we  liked  not  to  have 
it  done — though,  as  I  said  before,  I  could  have  contrived 
it  with  the  teaching  from  a  similar  lesson  elsewhere  ;  and 
this  mention  of  it  should  be  read  as  a  contribution  to  the 
cause  of  labor-saving.  With  the  increasing  cost  and 
trouble  of  Paddy-power,  such  digging  and  carrying  as  a 
freshet  will  do  (a  freshet  that  does  not  bargain,  either, 
for  the  extra  of  a  horse  or  wagon  on  Sunday)  is  worth 
the  study  of  at  least  one  man  in  every  valley  with  a  mill- 
stream. 


DESTINY      OF      HEMLOCKS.  165 


LETTER  XXYI. 

Wet  Seasons  Unfavorable  to  Hemlocks— The  First  Inland  Mile  on  the  Hudson— 
The  American  Malvern  and  Cheltenham — The  Steamboat  Landing  a  Fashion 
able  Resort — The  Highland  Gap  at  Sunset,  &c. 

September  17, 1853. 

WELL — even  hemlocks  are  not  allowed  to  be  too  happy  ! 
One  tree  may  not  long  out-bloom  or  be  more  admired  than 
another  —  vegetable  envy  will,  perhaps,  be  happy  to 
hear.  It  was  only  a  week  ago  that  I  was  recording  the 
unprecedented  impulse  given  to  the  spread  and  beauty  of 
the  hemlocks,  by  the  wetness  of  the  season.  With  oaks 
paling  from  lack  of  sunshine,  chestnuts  thinning,  and 
maples,  hickories,  and  butternuts  prematurely  undressing 
for  autumn,  the  evergreens  did  but  brighten  and  wax  glo 
rious — particularly  this  one  so  hated  by  carpenters.  Its 
destiny — to  be  idly  beautiful,  and  have  no  other  history 
on  the  page  of  lumber — was  unequivocally  smiled  on  by 
nature,  the  merely  ornamental  tree  exultingly  prospered 
above  the  exemplarily-usefuls.  Idlcwild  ventured  to  be 
happy  at  this  (with  nature  alone  responsible),  for  we  are 
little  but  a  wilderness  of  fir-trees  ;  and,  to  our  new  cot 
tage,  in  the  midst  of  seventy  acres  of  hemlock  good-for- 


166  LETTERS      FROM      I  OLE  WILD. 

nothingness,  it  seemed  a  special  dispensation.  My  thought- 
peg,  especially — the  pyramid  of  emerald  fir-tassels,  which 
lifts  its  beautiful  idleness  before  the  window  where  I  scrib 
ble — was  as  light  green,  when  September  came  in,  as 
when  called  upon  to  play  May-morning  for  the  more  re 
spectable  leaves  belated. 

But  at  the  close  of  last  week,  a  sprinkling  of  yellow 
was  observable  in  these  brilliant  masses  of  fir-foliage. 
While  the  outer  edges  of  the  new  shoots  were  still  of 
an  unseasonably  soft  green,  twigs  near  the  trunk  were 
evidently  dying.  Seeing  it,  at  first,  only  in  the  groves 
about  the  house,  I  attributed  it  to  the  artificializing  of  the 
wild  soil  by  the  removal  of  the  underbrush  and  the  ma 
nuring  for  grass  and  clover — evergreens  (they  say) 
dwindling,  like  the  North  American  Indian,  with  the  re 
finements  of  haughty-culture,  and  retaining  their  strength 
and  beauty  only  by  reproduction  from  their  own  ele 
ments  ;  from  a  soil  left  unenriched  about  them,  or  rather 
from  such  stuff  for  renewal  as  falls  only  with  the  stir  of 
their  own  breeze-obeying  branches.  I  was  still  musing 
on  the  apparent  contradiction  in  the  laws  of  nature — the 
Aztec  priesthood  and  the  Portuguese  nobility  dwarfing 
and  dwindling  by  this  same  "marrying  in  and  in"  which 
seemed  to  be  the  only  strength  of  the  Indian  and  the  fir- 
tree — when  a  drive  back  into  the  country,  showed  me 
that  the  blight  was  universal.  The  hemlocks  in  the  wild- 


AGENCY      OF      DECAY      IN     TREES.  I6t 

est  places  were  sprinkled  with  twigs  of  decaying  yellow, 
like  those  in  my  own  grounds.  Excess  of  growth,  and 
the  continuance  of  tender  bark  and  flowing  sap — profit- 
ings  by  this  particular  tree,  from  the  moisture  of  the 
season — have  proved  (it  seems  to  rne,  after  examining  the 
dead  stems)  an  attraction  for  a  destructive  insect.  The 
twigs  that  have  turned  yellow,  are  hollow,  like  reeds,  the 
sap,  apparently,  eaten  out  for  the  passage  of  the  worm. 

Since  writing  the  above,  I  have  found  a  record,  in 
Downing's  Horticulturist,  of  a  similar  blight  upon  spruce 
trees  in  England,  in  1845 — the  cause  the  same,  though 
the  agency  of  the  blight  is  not  attributed  to  an  insect. 
Downing  quotes  an  account  of  it  from  Professor  Lindley, 
the  botanist,  who  communicated  it  to  the  "  Gardener's 
Chronicle."  The  season  had  been  "  a  very  rainy  one,  and 
had  caused  an  exceedingly  gross  and  luxuriant  growth." 
To  this  cause  Dr.  Lindley  attributes  the  unusual  signs  of 
disease.  He  says,  "  We  do  not  recognize  in  these  symp 
toms  anything  incompatible  with  a  watery  condition  of 
last  year's  wood  ;  arising  not  so  much  from  excess  of 
water,  as  from  want  of  heat  and  light  to  carry  it  out  of 
the  system.  Under  these  circumstances  it  may  easily  be 
conceived  that  the  resinous  secretions,  necessary  to  the 
health  of  coniferous  trees,  were  inadequately  deposited  ; 
and  that,  now,  when  growth  recommences,  the  young 
leaves  cannot  find  in  their  neighborhood  their  food,  or 


168  LETTERS     FROM     IDLEWILD. 

orginazable  matter,  in  such  a  state  that  they  can  assimi 
late  it.  The  result  must  necessarily  be  that  the  foliage 
will  drop  off,  and,  in  such  cases,  the  wood  will  die  back, 
or  prove  permanently  diseased." 

At  Blackheath,  the  whole  of  the  foliage  was  falling  off 
from  the  spruces  and  larches,  and,  though  new  branches 
were  breaking  out,  they  were  so  few  that  the  trees  would 
have  to  be  removed.  Dr.  Lindley  says,  "An  alarm  has 
arisen  as  to  these  symptoms  of  unusual  disease  among 
plants,  lest  such  general  affections  in  the  vegetable  world 
should  be  forerunners  of  like  plagues  in  the  animal."  (?) 
***** 

I  am  afraid  we  are  destined  to  be  fashionable,  after 
all.  The  beaux  and  belles  of  our  neighborhood  have, 
during  the  present  season,  organized  their  times  and 
places  for  display  to  a  degree  premonitory  of  a  coming 
Saratoga.  It  was  a  destiny  to  have  been  foreseen,  from 
the  utilitarian  reasons  that  always  lie  at  the  bottom  of 
the  attractions  of  fashionable  resorts.  The  Mouth  of  the 
Moodna  marks  the  first  Inland  mile  on  the  Hudson. 
The  nearest  spot  to  New  York  for  complete  change  of 
climate — the  first  village  beyond  the  Highland  gap  of 
the  mountains  which  wall  off  the  Seaboard — the  readiest 
refuge  for  the  delicate  of  lungs  (and  an  atmosphere, 
indeed,  that  has  already  become  a  regular  prescription 
with  physicians  of  the  city),  is  this  rural  terrace  above 


THE      FUTURE      FORESHADOWED.  169 

the  Landing  at  Cornwall.  The  villages  of  Moodna  and 
Canterbury  are  to  be  the  Malvern  and  Cheltenham  of 
America — health-resorts  to  which  Fashion  (with  its  need 
of  an  excuse)  is  sure  to  follow.  We  may  as  well  make 
up  our  minds  to  it— though,  to  tell  the  truth,  Idle  wild 
had  thought  itself  more  in  a  corner  than  it  is  likely  now 
to  be.  Not  that  I  complain.  The  mineral  springs,  a 
mile  or  two  back  among  the  hills,  are  waiting  for  their 
Priesnitz  ;  and  the  bright  spirits,  that  soonest  wear  out 
will  come  hither  for  health — a  charming  promise  for  our 
society.  Painters  will  come  here  for  landscapes — profes 
sional  men  for  exercise  and  inspiriting  intercourse  with 
Nature — youth  for  schooling  amid  pure  air  and  ennobling 
scenery — strangers  from  other  lands,  for  repose  from 
travel  within  reach  of  the  city  and  its  news.  It  will  be 
yleasantly  populous,  this  Highland  Terrace.  There  will 
be  something  to  rejoice  at,  besides  money-making,  in 
what  is  drawn  together  by  its  attractions. 

But  "  first  steps  "  are  interesting  to  read  of,  and  this 
year's  indication  of  a  fashionable  resort  may  be  usefully 
chronicled  for  reference  in  our  history  hereafter.  The 
public  want  which  is  supplied  by  a  Hyde  Park  in 
London,  and  by  the  Champs-Elysees  at  Paris — a  resort 
for  those  who  have  vehicles  and  leisure — has  expressed 
itself,  and  found  time  and  place.  On  the  Landing  at  Corn 
wall  you  may  now  see  at  the  twilight  hour,  the  "  respect- 
8 


110  LETTERS      FROM      IDLEWILD. 

ability  "  as  well  as  the  fashion  and  gaiety  of  our  rural 
neighborhood.  The  swift  steamer  Alida,  which  leaves 
New  York  at  four  in  the  afternoon,  arrives  here  between 
six  and  seven  ;  and  on  board  are  husbands  and  brothers, 
lovers,  visitors  and  parcels.  There  is  excuse  enough  for 
any  vehicle  to  be  there.  It  is,  besides,  just  the  hour 
when  the  light  is  "becoming"  for  unbonnetted  beauty. 
The  time  for  the  boat's  arrival  varies  a  little  with  wind 
and  tide,  and,  for  a  half  hour  previous,  there  is  a  gay 
pouring  down  of  visitors  to  the  little  dock  at  Cornwall. 
Each  boarding-house  has  its  carry-all,  and  a  brilliant  load 
of  young  ladies  with  uncovered  heads.  Of  private 
carriages  there  is  a  liberal  sprinkling,  and,  of  female 
equestrians,  with  their  attendant  cavaliers,  not  a  few. 
The  long  tie-pole  is  first  occupied  with  closely  packed 
horses'  heads,  and  then  the  later  arrivals  are  distributed 
back  over  the  open  area  of  the  wharf,  making  a  crowd  of 
carriages,  that,  with  the  gaily-dressed  people  and  the 
interchange  of  visits,  is  as  like  a  "soiree  on  wheels"  as 
the  Cascine  at  Florence.  Not  the  least  interesting 
feature  of  it,  to  me,  however,  is  one  not  seen  at  the 
Cascine — a  free  mixture  of  the  laboring  classes  of  the 
neighborhood  in  this  lively  half-hour  and  its  sights. 
Among  the  loads  of  pretty  girls,  the  shirt-sleeves  take 
their  walk,  with  full  liberty  to  admire.  And  in  a  country 
where  industry  and  intelligence  are  the  steps  for  equality 


CORNWALL      LANDING      AT      SUNSET  111 

and  companionship  with  what  is  thus  admired,  the  infla 
ence  is  salutary. 

Gaiety  and  fashion  aside,  however,  and  looked  at  with 
a  painter's  eye  only,  the  scene  at  the  arrival  of  that 
steamer  is  well  worth  taking  some  trouble  to  see.  No 
river  and  mountain  scenery  in  the  world  has  a  spot  which 
surpasses  the  gap  through  the  Highlands,  in  the  sunset 
light  It  is  wondrously  beautiful,  as  seen  from  the 
thronged  dock  of  Cornwall  at  that  hour — the  cloud- 
touching  amphitheatre  of  mountains  flooded  with  rosy 
light,  and  a  broad  mirror  of  bright  water  at  its  base  ; 
and  then  the  magnificent  spectacle  of  the  handsomest 
boat  on  the  river,  suddenly  rounding  the  wooded  point 
and  dashing  up  to  the  wharf  with  her  gay  streamers  and 
crowded  decks  !  It  is  a  sight  which  makes  an  enliven 
ing  close,  indeed,  to  a  day  in  the  country. 


172  LETTERS     FROM     IDLEWILD. 


LETTER  XXVII. 

Highway  Pigs— Giving  the  Old  Woman  a  Ride— Her  Favorite  Jemmy— Pork  and 
Poets— Common  Folks'  Knowledge  of  Neighbors— Letter  from  a  Correspon 
dent,  &c.,  &c. 

October  1, 1853. 

I  MENTALLY  took  back,  to-day,  some  of  my  strong  lan 
guage  on  the  subject  of  highway  pigs.  It  was  somewhat 
an  unexpected  retrocession,  too  ;  for,  coming  out  from 
my  gate,  on  the  river  side,  I  had  found  some  thrifty  clo 
ver,  which  had  been  sown  around  the  posts  on  the  road 
side,  completely  rooted  up  by  snouts  that  should,  at  least, 
have  had  rings  in  them.  "With  my  home  thus  made  slovenly 
and  inelegant  to  the  eye  of  the  transient  passer-by,  I 
was  making  a  large  counter-charge  of  new  happiness  to 
which  I  had,  by  this  new  sorrow,  become  entitled,  when 
I  overtook  an  old  woman  loaded  heavily  with  baskets  and 
bundles.  The  look  over  her  shoulder  at  the  empty  seat 
in  my  wagon  would  have  been  irresistible  from  the  mere 
largeness  of  the  favor — as  she  was  doubtless  bound  to 
Newburgh  like  myself,  and  a  "lift''  would  save  her  four 
miles  of  trudging  in  a  hot  sun,  and  the  two  tolls  on  the 


THE      PIG.  173 

way  ;  but  she  was,  to  me  a  volume  in  a  library  I  love  to 
dip  into — a  history  of  a  life,  being  lived,  of  which  I  and 
the  recording  angel  would  thus  read  the  chapter  of  to-day. 
A  true  book,  thus  opened  for  one  when  he  has  attention 
to  spare,  and  walking  on  its  own  legs  afterwards  away, 
would  be  a  favor  to  the  reader,  you  would  suppose — yet 
this  old  woman  got  into  my  wagon  to  be  read  for  a  half 
hour,  and  was  grateful  to  me !  How  often  the  apparent 
givings  of  this  complex  life  are  thus  secretly  refunded  with 
overpayings  ! 

Under  my  recent  irritation,  there  was  but  one  subject 
upon  which  I  was  likely  to  converse,  and,  as  a  neighbor's 
dog  crossed  the  road  in  chase  of  a  pig,  I  remarked  upon 
the  different  fates  of  the  different  classes  to  which  the  two 
animals  belonged — dogs  and  donkeys  valued  only  before 
death,  pigs  and  poets  valued  principally  after.  Whether 
or  not  the  old  woman  fully  comprehended  the  analogy  be 
tween  pork  and  fame,  she  went  immediately  into  the  charac 
ter  of  her  pig  "'  Jemmy,"  giving  him  such  life-time  praise 
as  made  him  clearly  an  exception  to  my  theory.  His 
running  loose  upon  the  road,  and  fattening  with  no  cost  or 
trouble  to  her,  his  faithfulness  to  his  pen,  his  endurance 
of  the  dogs,  and  his  innocent  ways  with  the  children, 
were  described  lovingly  enough  to  make  a  live  poet  en 
vious.  Unpopular  as  he  must  needs  be  abroad,  "  Jemmy  " 
was,  at  home,  an  idol.  She  stuck  to  the  theme.  It  was 


174  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE WILD. 

evident  that  the  world,  for  her,  might  be  divided  into  two 
equal  parts — her  pig  and  residue-dom.  I  regretted,  I 
say,  that  I  had  been  so  general  in  my  war  upon  the  swine 
loose  in  my  neighborhood.  If  "Jemmy"  has  chanced  to 
be  among  them,  it  would  not  be  amends  enough  that  I 
should  relish  him  hereafter  as  pork — pork,  which  had  thus 
made  an  old  woman  happy,  having  been,  it  seemed  to  me, 
deserving  of  respect  while  in  pig.  (Mem.  to  advocate 
considerateness  towards  stigmatized  classes,  and  especially 

to  pre-pork  the  poets  who  are  yet  to  be  cut  up  and  sold.) 
*  *  #  *  * 

The  road  I  frequent,  between  Idlewild  and  Newburgh, 
has  no  public  conveyance  ;  and  there  is,  of  course,  an 
understanding,  along  its  four  or  five  miles,  that  a  foot- 
passenger  is  entitled  to  a  "  lift,"  in  any  vehicle  going  "  his 
way  "  with  a  spare  seat.  In  my  plain  wagon,  with  a  pair 
of  horses  more  useful  than  ornamental,  I  happily  seem 
rather  seeking  company  than  bestowing  any  very  great 
favor,  in  my  daily  pickings-up  ;  and,  on  that  footing,  men, 
women,  and  children  are  very  communicative.  If  you  could 
make  the  telegraph-wires  drop  down  the  secrets  they  are 
carrying,  as  you  drive  under  them,  it  would  scarce  be 
more  voluminous — certainly  less  interesting.  Common 
people  think  something — if  they  do  not  know  something — 
about  everybody  within  reach.  In  passing  the  villa  of 
my  magnificent  neighbor  "the  Commodore,"  the  other 


ROAD-SIDE      GLEANINGS.  1^5 

day,  "  who  keeps  a  yacht,  and  never  drives  the  same  car 
riage  twice,"  I  was  told  (also),  that  he  was  "worth  ten 
cents  a  minute."  My  own  house  was  pointed  out  to  me 
as  the  residence  of  a  man  that  "  publishes  a  paper  in 
poetry."  The  different  wages  that  are  made,  the  differ 
ent  ways  of  employing  odd  time,  the  experience  in  cows, 
pigs,  and  poultry,  and  the  characters  of  the  "  chaps  and 
girls,"  are  matters  that  let  in  many  a  side-light  upon  my 
trips  to  Newburgh,  I  find  the  common  air  very  much 
peopled  with  all  this,  and  even  our  beautiful  scenery  very 
'much  socialized  and  varied.  The  landscape  is  lovelier, 
I  find,  when,  under  every  chimney-smoke  which  I  see  back 
of  us  on  the  mountain,  I  think  it  probable  I  thus  have 
an  acquaintance. 

The  new  railroad  which  is  to  take  us  from  Moodna  to 
Newburgh  in  seven  minutes,  will,  of  course,  displace  the 
wagon-travel,  and  carry  him,  who  is  now  a  leisurely  and 
chatty  foot-passenger,  in  expeditious  insignificance  and 
silence.  /  shall  be  a  loser  by  the  "improvement." 
Whether  or  not  I  see  more  correctly,  while  thus  looking 
daily  through  the  eyes  of  other  kinds  of  people,  I  cer- 
ainly  see  afterwards  much  more  freshly  through  my  own. 
We  have  some  flesh  and  blood,  all  of  us,  below  books  and 
telegraph-wires,  which  enjoys  humble  company  best.  It 
airs  the  ground-floor  apartments  of  one's  brain. 

From  seeing  how  my  children  are  interested  in  the 


1T6  LETTERS     FROM     IDLEWILD. 

company  thus  picked  up  on  the  road,  or  how  much  more 
even  friends  at  table  enjoy  the  most  common  history  of 
the  day's  drive  than  things  of  more  wisdom  and  moment, 
I  have  mused  over  what  we  are  doing-away-with,  of  the 
interest  of  life,  by  the  generalizing  operation  of  "pro 
gress."  There  was  adventure  and  study  of  character  in 
stage-coaches,  which  made  travel  more  attractive  before 
railroads  were  invented.  As  telegraphing  becomes 
cheaper  and  more  common,  many  a  charming  long  letter 
will  be  economized  down  to  a  cold  question  or  answer, 
written  in  a  strange  hand.  Relief  by  schemes  of  benevo-. 
lence  will  turn  many  of  the  little  romances  of  private 
charity  into  large  subscriptions.  We  are  quickening  and 
extending  the  scope  of  life  by  removing  its  details  as 
hindrances — but  are  not  those  details,  in  themselves,  valu 
able  ?  I  shrink  from  being  thus  generalized  away — my 
single  pulses  lumped  into  an  apoplexy,  for  shortness.  I 
shall  go  to  Newburgh  quicker  and  cheaper,  it  is  true, 
when  the  enterprise  of  the  country  shall  have  completed 
the  railroad — but  I  shall  not  go  so  pleasantly,  perhaps, 
not  so  kindly  or  wisely,  as  in  my  wagon,  with  a  spare  seat 
for  a  stranger  or  neighbor. 

***** 

I  have  now  and  then  a  private  letter  which  I  grudge 
not  giving  to  the  public.  Like  the  clerk  at  the  "  dead 
letter  office,"  at  Washington,  who  first  takes  out  the 


TOO      GOOD      TO      LOSE.  177 

money,  I  should  like  to  subtract  at  least  what  is  valuable, 
from  much  which  I  am  expected  to  destroy.  Responses 
to  Idlewild  influences — of  which  I  am  gratified  to  know 
there  are  many — would  naturally  come  from  minds  of 
"out-door"  naturalness  and  liberality;  and  such  will, 
even  incidentally  and  carelessly,  "  scatter  pearls."  A 
letter  has  come  in,  at  this  moment,  for  instance,  from  a 
stranger  who  thus  takes  pen  and  ink  to  a  thought-answer; 
and  he  gives  me  a  private-life  sketch  of  the  President 
(suggested  by  my  recent  allusion  to  him  in  one  of  these 
Idlewild  pencillings),  which,  as  not  intended  for  publica 
tion,  and  undoubtedly  truthful  and  uninterested,  it  were  a 
pity  to  lose.  I  shall  shock  my  viewless  mind-acquaintance 
by  copying  nearly  the  whole  of  his  letter  ;  for  it  contains 
a  tribute  to  the  home,  influence  of  the  Home  Journal, 
which  I  am  proud  to  record  ;  and  it  contains  also  a  cor- 
roboration  of  our  counsel  from  a  correspondent  as  to  the 
transplanting  of  evergreens,  which  may  be  valuable  ;  and 
some  memorials  of  Webster,  which  are  well  worth  pre 
serving.  Thus  writes  my  viewless  friend  : — 

*  *  "  Once  in  five  or  six  years  I  must  write  you  a  letter — not 
that  I  wish  to  force  myself  upon  your  notice,  but  to  let  you  know 
we  (my  better  half  and  myself)  are  still,  and  ever  strongly  inte 
rested  in  everything  that  pertains  to  yourself.  Each  Sabbath 
morning— or  earlier,  if  the  business  of  the  week  permits — I  find 
the  Home  Journal,  and  first  read  your  letter  from  l  Idlewild  ;'  but 

8* 


178  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE  WILD. 

frequently  '  Lydia '  (that  better  half)  has  anticipated  the  reading, 
by  repeating  to  me  what  it  is  about ;  she  finds  a  '  world  of  interest ' 
in  your  letters.  '  Idlewild  '  to  us,  as  doubtless  to  thousands  of 
others,  is  as  familiar  in  everything,  except  mere  feet  and  rods,  as 
our  own  native  fields.  We  see  through  the  medium  (that  you  are) 
your  untutored  trees,  cascades,  glens,  and  the  torrent,  and  its 
ravages,  and  yourself  contemplating  the  scene  from  some  invulner 
able  point,  like  Volney  bending  over  his  '  ruins,'  or  riding  your 
pony  along  the  winding  paths,  in  pursuit  of  health  and  a  glorious 
sunrise,  or  talking  with  a  neighbor  across  the  fence  about  the 
experiences  of  rural  life.  Indeed,  your  new  habitation  has  a 
locality  and  a  definiteness  in  our  minds,  like  the  remembrance 
of  a  city  'seen  in  a  dream,'  and  if  business  should  ever  make  it 
convenient  for  me  to  intrude  myself  there,  and  I  should  find  the 
reality  different  from  the  image  in  my  mind,  it  would  occasion 
some  sorrow. 

"  I  followed  the  directions  of  your  correspondent  respecting  the 
transplanting  of  evergreens,  and  had  one  set  out  in  July — gave 
it  but  two  waterings,  and  otherwise  not  the  usual  care,  thinking 
the  roots  had  been  clipped  so  short  that  it  would  die  at  any  rate, 
but  it  has  never  wilted,  and  is  now  growing.  I  have  had  four  dif 
ferent  evergreens  set  out  in  the  same  place,  either  in  the  spring  or 
fall,  with  better  roots,  bountiful  watering,  and  they  all  died.  I 
think  the  hint  worthy  of  notice. 

"  Frank  Pierce's  hair  is  most  obstinately  curly,  and  if  there  is 
much  care  bestowed  upon  it  by  himself  or  barber,  it  must  be  to 
straighten,  not  to  curl  it.  The  "Washington  correspondent  of  the 
Tribune  is  capable  of  writing  some  truth  ;  and  it  is  a  pity  he  thus 
strayed  from  it.  The  President  is  a  man  of  much  grace  of  person, 
as  well  as  of  mind  (qualities  which  are  found  together  more  fre- 


PIERCE      AND      WEBSTER.  179 

quently  than  Nature  has  the  credit  for)  5  and  for  the  former,  he 
has  suffered  some  malicious  criticisms.  He  is  one  of  the  '  best 
walking  men '  in  the  world.  His  manners  are  very  easy  and 
entirely  natural.  I  speak  of  him  as  a  lawyer  at  the  bar,  and 
as  such  I  know  him  well.  Though  he  has  been  very  much 
abused  by  his  political  opponents,  he  has  never  replied  to  any 
of  their  charges,  except  when  some  other  person's  character  was 
compromised.  I  speak  of  him  previous  to  his  nomination  for  the 
Presidency.  He  has  been  charged  with  nearly  every  crime  in  the 
criminal  calendar.  But,  though  not  one  of  the  formal  moral 
men,  those  who  know  him  as  I  and  thousands  of  others  do  in  this 
State,  know  that  he  has  one  of  the  best  of  hearts  that  animates  the 
bosom  of  man.  You  may  think  I  overrate  Pierce,  because  I  have 
had  no  acquaintance  with  great  men  5  and,  though  there  may  be 
some  truth  in  this  position,  it  is  not  wholly  true  :  for  it  has  been 
either  my  good  or  bad  luck  to  know  something  personally  of  many 
of  the  very  first-class  of  statesmen  in  the  country  ;  and  while  I 
do  not  claim  for  Pierce  the  Webster  rank  as  a  statesman,  I  do  claim 
that  he  is  a  frank  and  honest  man,  and  a  gentleman  in  all  his 
deportment. 

"  Is  there  not  enough  of  interest  in  this  vicinity  to  pay  you  for 
a  visit  here  ?  We  are  only  a  few  hours'  ride  from  the  White  Hills 
within  seven  miles  of  Kearsarg  Mountain.  Just  below  this — ten 
miles — is  the  island  on  which  Mrs.  Dunstin  killed  the  Indians. 
This,  too,  is  the  native  place  of  DANIEL  WEBSTER,  and  here  are 
some  men  who  knew  him  in  his  childhood,  and  hundreds  who  have 
known  him  intimately  through  all  the  days  of  his  fame.  The 
farm — two  miles  and  a  half  from  our  village,  in  Salisbury — where 
be  was  born,  is  still  owned  by  the  estate,  he  having  purchased  it 
*wo  or  three  years  since,  and  an  exact  copy  of  the  immense  elm 


180        LETTERS   FROM   IDLE  WILD. 

which  shades  the  well,  adorns  the  diplomas  of  the  State  Agricul 
tural  Society.  Two  miles  below,  on  the  river-road  to  Concord, 
stands  the  old  weather-beaten  '  Tavern  Stand/  which  Mr.  Web 
ster's  father  occupied  in  Daniel's  schoolboy  days;  and  nearly 
opposite  is  the  old-fashioned,  plain,  two-story  dwelling  which  was 
occupied  by  Mr.  Webster's  father  in  his  latter  years,  and  by  Mr. 
Webster  on  his  visits  to  this  place,  which  were  as  often  as  twice  a 
year — he  spending  from  one  to  five  or  six  weeks  each  time,  just  as 
his  business  would  admit.  There  are  fifteen  or  twenty  dwellings 
here  occupied  mostly  by  the  old  neighbors  (and  their  descendants) 
of  Mr.  W.  Everything  in  and  about  the  late  residence  of  the 
great  man  was  neat  and  plain,  and  regulated  in  accordance  with 
his  wish.  In  the  house  everything  is  just  as  he  left  it  a  year  ago 
— tables,  chairs,  books,  maps  and  manuscripts  are  unmoved,  except 
to  dust  them.  The  old-fashioned  rocking-chair  in  which  he  habi 
tually  sat,  with  its  back  running  off  with  a  long,  continuous 
sweep,  and  in  which  he  might  as  well  be  said  to  lie  as  to  sit, 
stands  in  its  particular  corner.  And  who  is  there  that  can  look 
at  these  things,  now,  with  indifference  ?  And  opposite,  and  a 
little  below,  is  the  little,  old,  time-worn  law  office  in  which  Mr. 
Webster  spent  a  few  months,  studying  law  with  William  Thomp 
son  ;  and  still  further  down,  is  the  old  and  decaying  <  white  oak,' 
on  which  he  '  hung  his  scythe?  This  is  called  the  '  Elm  Farm,' 
on  account  of  the  great  number  of  large  and  beautiful  elms  that 
grow  upon  it. 

"  I  have  extended  my  notes  farther  than  I  should  have  done  had 
I  not  known  you  to  be  an  admirer  of  Mr.  Webster. 

"  Is  there  nothing,  I  repeat,  to  pay  you  for  a  visit  here  ?  I  have 
a  plate  and  a  bed  to  spare,  and  an  '  old  John  '  (horse)  and  a 
buggy,  which  shall  be  all  at  your  service.  Excuse  this  careless 


A      FRIENDLY      ENDING.  181 

writing,  and  be  assured  that  there  are  warm  hearts  that  beat  for 
you  in  the  Granite  State. 
"  Yours,  with  the  best  wishes  for  health  and  happiness." 


182  LETTERS     FROM     IDLBWILD. 


LETTER    XXVIII. 

Autumnal  Privileges — Extent  of  Personal  Orbit — Dignity  of  a  Daily  Diameter — 
Difference  between  Saddle  and  Carriage- Riding — Health  in  a  Nobody- 
bath,  &c.,  &c. 

October  8,  1853. 

THE  autumnal  coolness  gives  me  back  a  certain 
spaciousness  of  personal  dignity  (if  I  may  confess  to,  and 
analyze  it),  which  the  summer  somewhat  suspended  or 
diminished.  But,  a  word  first  upon  the  principle  of 
Nature  which  I  may  hope  to  elucidate  by  the  mention 
of  it. 

The  extent  of  the  earth's  surface  which  each  animal 
personally  inhabits,  must,  to  a  certain  degree,  I  think,  be 
a  measure  of  his  feeling  of  personal  consequence.  The 
snail's  to-and-fro  is,  perhaps,  a  foot  of  ground — the  bee's  a 
mile.  Yet,  though  the  snail  has  a  separate  house  over  his 
head,  and  the  bee  has  but  a  chamber  in  a  boarding-house, 
I  should  estimate  their  probable  respective  dignity  by  the 
difference  between  a  foot  and  a  mile.  And  this  conscious 
orbit  seems  to  be  only  the  distance  that  one  travels  over 
with  the  means  of  locomotion  that  are  incorporated  in  his 


THE     HORSE,     UNDER     A     NEW     ASPECT.        183 

personal  identity ;  not  what  one  does  with  adventitious  aid 
— the  fly  in  a  rail-car,  we  suppose,  having  no  more 
respect  for  himself  than  a  fly  in  a  kitchen.  A  habit  of 
riding  in  a  carriage  is  thus  a  short-coming,  as  to  its 
power  to  enlarge  the  conscious  dignity. 

But  a  horse  may  be  added  to  a  man.  With  daily 
habituation  to  the  saddle,  the  animal  becomes  as  natu 
rally  a  function  of  the  system,  as  the  wings  become  part 
of  the  consciousness  of  the  worm,  on  its  changing  into  a 
butterfly.  Henry  Ward  Beecher  says,  in  one  of  his 
clever  letters  to  the  Independent,  that  "the  horse  is  a 
gentleman  " — and  so  he  is  ;  for  the  art  of  a  gentleman  is, 
to  blend  his  presence,  insensibly  and  deferentially,  into 
the  presence  of  another.  As  you  get  used  to  his  paces, 
and  he  to  your  wishes  and  motion,  the  horse's  four  legs 
and  better  wind  grow  into  the  consciousness  of  your  own 
two  legs  and  lungs.  You  take  him  into  your  general 
sense  of  existence  and  power,  dismissing  him  from  particu 
lar  remembrance  like  a  hand  or  a  foot.  There  is  a  facile 
naturalness  about  this  which  seems  either  like  a  memory 
revived,  or  a  prescient  instinct.  (Have  we  been  quadru 
peds  ?  Or  shall  we  be  centaurs  ? ) 

By  the  summer's  temperature  and  by  its  demands  upon 
social  locomotion,  the  use  of  the  saddle  is  more  or  less  dis 
placed.  With  friends  and  children  to  see  scenery  and 
take  the  air,  heat  to  avoid,  and  working-man  wanted  in  the 


184  LETTERS      FROM      IDLEWILD. 

garden,  one  plays  driver  every  day,  doing  what  travel  is 
agreeable  on  wheels.  Although  more  extent  is  thus  passed 
over,  perhaps,  it  is  as  a  passenger  conveyed,  not  as  a 
single  creature  moving  by  the  exercise  of  its  unconscious 
will  and  limbs.  And  this  (the  experience  which  I  wish  to 
record)  is  a  lessening  of  the  personal  orbit,  a  reducing  of 
the  individual  and  prerogative  occupancy  of  the  earth's 
surface,  to  the  extent  of  what  one  walks  over  on  foot. 

But  the  equinox — which  takes  the  languor  out  of  the 
air,  and  which  drives  friends  and  visitors  to  the  city  and 
makes  children  prefer  exercise  to  a  drive — gives  back  the 
five-mile  diameter  to  my  dignity.  There  is  a  horse  power 
in  my  consciousness — for  I  daily  move  where  I  list,  with 
a  horse  under  me.  And  oh,  the  proportion  there  is  in  it  ! 
Trees  are  too  tall,  mountains  too  far  apart,  streams  too 
long  in  their  courses,  and  winds  too  chilling  and  too  wild 
in  their  wanderings — for  man  without  a  horse.  We  are 
amputated,  without  one,  when  abroad  with  nature.  The 
instinct,  among  mountains  and  valleys,  is  that  all  around 
was  measured  for  horse-reach — "  upon  thy  belly  shalt 
thou  go,"  expressing  the  fatigue  and  effort  that  con 
stituted  the  serpent's  degradation  from  his  first  allotment, 
confining  him  to  a  small  space  by  incapacitating  him  from 
the  use  of  the  saddle.  Birds  can  walk  after  their  wings 
are  clipped,  and  men  can  live  without  horses  in  cities — 
but  both  are  mutilated. 


A      NOBODY-BATH.  185 

It  will  be  understood  that  this  enlarging  of  dignity  as 
a  human  being,  by  a  daily  ride  on  horseback,  is  not  an 
increase  of  conceit  as  to  one's  relative  consequence  among 
neighbors.  On  the  contrary  (unless  a  man  is  riding  a 
thousand  dollar  horse,  while  mine,  upon  which  I  build  this 
theory,  cost  fifty),  one  wholesomely  gets  away  from  his 
own  fences  and  his  undisputed  dictatorship  over  pigs  and 
chickens — wholesomely  airs  his  other-people-ness — by 
going  upon  that  which  he  forgets  as  an  advantage.  In  a 
carriage,  he  takes  with  him  his  proclaimer  of  something 
from  which  others  can  be  excluded.  But,  on  a  horse  which 
habit  has  made  a  part  of  his  identity,  he  feels  abroad — 
the  wayfarer  that  he  looks  to  be — unstarched  of  privi 
leges  and  open  to  chance  companionship  ;  and  this  is  a 
nobody-bath,  of  which  those  who  live  in  great  cities  get 
more  than  is  healthful  or  pleasant,  and  those  who  breathe 
only  the  atmosphere  of  their  own  estates  get  too  little. 

But  I  have  spun  philosophy  with  a  pen  mended  to 
note  the  season  and  its  bringings-about.  October  to 
morrow,  and  not  a  leaf  changed  at  Idlewild  !  Yet,  three 
weeks  ago,  refreshing  my  memory  with  a  drive  about 
the  Eden-suburbs  of  Boston,  I  found  every  maple,  between 
Roxbury  and  Milton,  crimson  with  the  red-letter  chroni 
cle  of  a  frost.  Have  we  so  much  more  summer,  on  our 
Highland  Terrace  ?  The  Autumn  haze  and  stillness  are 
here,  slumbering  over  the  bright  green  woods,  like  the 


186  LETTERS      FROM      IDLEWILD. 

brief  tranquillity  of  a  first  revolt  from  the  world,  thrown 
sometimes  over  the  face  of  a  beauty  of  sixteen.  The 
brooks  are  oh,  how  brilliant,  in  their  autumnal  fulness  ! 
IdlewilcTs  cascades  have  strengthened  to  an  anthem. 
The  two  inner  door-posts  of  the  State — the  two  moun 
tains  between  which  the  Hudson  passes  out  to  the  sea 

are  curtained  with  June's  drapery  of  emerald.  Yet  this 
lingering  Summer  was  brought  us  by  an  early  Spring. 


NATURE'S    MUSIC. 


LETTER  XXIX. 

October's  First  Sunday — Silverbrook,  and  the  Blacksmith's  Story  of  its  History 
—Storm-King  and  Black  Peter— Effects  of  the  Avalanche— Tribute  to  Child 
ren's  Love,  &c.,  &c. 

October  15,  1853. 

OCTOBER'S  first  Sunday  seemed  to  be  a  celebration  of 
High  Mass  out  of  doors.  Our  mountain-galleried  temple 
with  its  ten-mile  floor,  was  decorated  by  the  first  frost  ; 
and  the  three  glens  which  traverse  it  were  like  three 
aisles  carpeted  with  rainbows.  Stillness,  brightness, 
purity  and  all,  it  seemed  to  me  I  had  never  seen  a  morn 
ing  with  more  Sabbath  in  it.  By  common  consent,  the 
winds  seemed  excluded  from  these  open-air  services.  It 
is  only  when  they  are  hushed  that  nature  seems  devout. 
But  the  streams  played  their  varying  chant — Idlewild 
(perhaps  because  a  new-born  daughter  of  mine  was 
cradled  among  its  leaves)  the  loudest  voluntary  of  all. 
The  Moodna,  descending  more  gradually  to  the  Hudson, 
is  the  basso  of  this  Highland  choir  ;  and  Silverbrook,  on 
the  other  side  of  our  own  wildest  and  most  precipitous 
torrent  of  all,  is  the  slender-voiced  and  less  constant  so 
prano.  I  listened  to  each  in  turn,  with  slacked  bridle,  on 


188  LETTERS      FROM      I  OLE  WILD. 

Sunday  morning.  If  there  was  any  other  sound  in  the 
wide  world,  it  was  no  interruption  to  the  hymning  trio  ; 
and  the  vibrations  of  their  music,  amid  the  light  incense 
of  the  sunshine  and  leaves,  seemed  to  have  meaning  with 
out  words — a  worship  of  God  inarticulate  but  eloquent. 
My  morning  ride  was  to  the  knee  of  old  Storm- King* 
I  had  not  yet  seen  the  piling-up  of  rocks  in  his  lap  by  the 
avalanche  of  a  month  or  more  ago — a  neglected  pilgrim 
age,  considering  the  magnitude  of  the  phenomenon  to 
our  quiet  neighborhood.  The  stream  I  crossed  (and  the 
thickly  cottaged-valley  of  which  was  the  main  scene  of 
destruction  by  the  freshet  so  memorable)  was  long  and 
patiently  mined  for  silver  by  the  first  settlers — Silver- 
brook  being  thereby  made  its  history  and  its  name.  I 
sat  on  the  village  anvil,  the  other  day,  while  a  loose  shoe 
was  fastened  for  my  mare,  and  listened  to  a  love-story 
which  the  blacksmith  tells  of  those  early  days — the  vic 
tim,  a  daughter  of  the  chief  who  had  given  the  white 
man  shelter  while  he  delved  for  ore.  It  was  capitally 

*  The  tallest  mountain,  with  its  feet  in  the  Hudson  at  the  Highland  Gap,  is 
officially  the  Storm-King — being  looked  to,  by  the  whole  country  around,  as  the 
most  sure  foreteller  of  a  storm.  When  the  white  cloud-beard  descends 
upon  his  breast  in  the  morning  (as  if  with  a  nod  forward  of  his  majestic  head), 
there  is  sure  to  be  a  rain-storm  before  night.  Standing  aloft  among  the 
other  mountains  of  the  chain,  this  sign  is  peculiar  to  him.  He  seems  the  mon 
arch,  and  this  seems  his  stately  ordering  of  a  change  in  the  weather.  Should 
not  STORM-KING,  then,  be  his  proper  title  ? 


BLACK      PETER.  189 

told,  and  I  would  re-tell  it  if  I  could  ;  but  it  needs  the 
click  of  the  hammer  for  emphasis,  and  the  look  up  from 
under  the  smooched  hat  for  pathos,  with  here  and  there 
the  parenthesis  of  a  "  whoa  !"  to  my  kicking  mare.  The 
Indian  vengeance,  by  the  way,  was  only  calm  scorn  and 
a  leading  to  the  door  of  the  wigwam  with  expressive 
pointing  of  the  finger  to  the  distance — the  daughter  re 
tained  and  cherished,  and  the  seducer  driven  forth  with 
contempt.  It  was  a  traditionary  lesson  of  pity  and  dig 
nity,  worthy  of  seal  and  vellum,  though  told  by  the  his 
torian  over  a  leather  apron  and  with  a  horse's  leg  in  his 
lap. 

The  road  along  the  Storm-King's  lap — half-a-rnile  or 
thereabouts  of  Highland  level — turns  off  from  the  turn 
pike  between  Canterbury  and  Cornwall,  and  is  as  lovely  a 
walk  or  drive,  views  and  background  together,  as  the 
world  has  to  show.  As  a  mountain  shelf,  overhanging 
the  broad  bowl  of  the  Highland  Bay,  it  will  be  jotted 
with  the  villas  of  the  lovers  of  scenery,  as  soon  as  the 
railroad  on  this  side  of  the  river  shall  bring  us  within 
suburban  distance  of  New  York  ;  but,  at  present,  it  is  a 
secluded  green  lane,  kept  in  fine  travelling  order  by  the 
liberal  farmers  who  live  upon  it,  and  ending  at  the  cot 
tage  of  Black  Peter,  whom  I  found  sitting  at  the  door 
and  coaxing  his  rheumatism  in  the  sun.  From  my  saddle 
I  could  see  down  upon  the  decks  of  the  sloops  becalmed 


190  LETTERS      PROM      IDLEWILD 

in  the  Bay,  and  almost  seemed  near  enough  to  count  the 
passengers  in  the  cars  on  the  railroad  opposite.  Busy 
life  was  very  near.  Wild  fastnesses  of  rock  were  very 
close  behind.  For  villa-ground  of  combined  picturesque- 
ness  and  liveliness  of  surroundings,  I  know  no  spot  of 
greater  capability.  As  the  birth-place  and  burial-place 
of  our  country's  young  hero,  Duncan,  it  is  a  neghborhood 
enriched,  besides,  with  a  sentiment  and  a  memory — a  spot 
of  earth  with  a  soul. 

But  Black  Peter,  at  whose  cottage  I  had  dismounted, 
is  next  neighbor  to  the  avalanche,  the  cataract  of  rocks 
having  descended  a  few  rods  beyond  his  chimney-smoke  ; 
and,  after  prescribing  for  his  lame  leg,  I  walked  on  to 
take  a  closer  look  at  the  bared  ribs  of  the  Storm-King. 
I  was  surprised  to  see  that  the  multitude  of  enormous 
rocks,  which  had  come  down  with  the  burst  of  the  water 
spout  upon  the  summit  of  the  mountain,  had  nowhere 
accumulated  with  sufficient  strength  to  check  the  head 
way  of  the  flood.  The  vast  fragments,  many  of  them 
eight  or  ten  feet  square,  were  tossed  out  of  its  way  to 
the  sides  of  the  torrent,  leaving  a  hollow  gulf  cut  quite 
through  the  terrace,  or  lap  of  the  mountain,  and  forming 
what  will  be,  hereafter,  a  rock-walled  channel  for  the 
melting  snows.  It  gave  me  quite  a  new  idea  of  the  power 
of  the  element  that  flows  so  gently  in  the  brook.  Those 
who,  from  ten  miles  around,  see  the  scarred  seam  down 


CHILD-LOVE.  191 

the  breast  of  the  Storm-King,  can  hardly  conceive  the 
resistless  ploughing  up  of  ribs  of  rock  by  the  cataract 
that  did  it.  Geology  might  well  illustrate  a  lesson 
there. 

But  next  neighbor  to  the  Storm-King  with  his  avalanche 
— poor  old  Black  Peter  with  his  rheumatism — is  quite 
as  noteworthy  ;  and,  indeed,  after  stopping  to  exchange 
another  word  with  him  on  my  return,  I  found  more  of  my 
Sunday's  sermon  in  the  cripple — (the  old  man  mused 
upon,  and  the  mountain  forgotten) — as  I  rode  leisurely 
homeward.  There  is  one  thing  said  of  Peter  by  every 
body  : — "It  is  wonderful  how  the  children  always  loved 
him."  His  time-worn  face  tells  the  reason  of  it — broad- 
featured,  simple,  kindly,  and  cheerful.  He  has  passed  his 
life  as  gardener  and  working-man  for  the  different  wealthy 
families  hereabouts,  and  many  a  gentleman  and  lady,  now 
moving  gaily  in  city  life,  has  been  made  happy  by  dand 
ling  on  his  knee  ;  but,  for  the  last  few  years,  quite  disa 
bled,  he  has  lived,  in  the  small  hut  up  against  the  moun 
tain,  supported  by  the  charity  of  neighbors,  or  hobbling 
down  to  the  turnpike  on  his  crutch,  to  " show  his  paper" 
to  the  passer-by.  It  is  curious  how  singly  and  universally 
his  character  for  making  children  fond  of  him  is  estab 
lished.  "Yes,"  said  an  old  gentleman,  to  whom  I  spoke 
of  him  yesterday,  "the  boys  and  girls  would  leave  the 
luxuries  of  the  parlor  table  untouched,  to  go  out  and  eat 


192  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE WILD. 

salt  pork  and  bread  with  Peter,  any  time  I"  And  he  is 
made  famous,  at  last,  by  this  long  life  of  child-love.  Xo- 
body  speaks  of  him  without  naming  it.  Though  not  par 
ticularly  cherished  or  petted  by  the  neighborhood,  he  has 
a  better  specialty  than  most  of  us — a  loveable  specialty, 
which  makes  him  an  example,  while  it  provides  that  he 
shall  be  remembered.  He  must  always  have  been  genial, 
truthful,  self-sacrificing,  and  considerate — always  both 
playful  and  judicious.  His  character  is  written  in  the 
tribute  it  brought — better  loved  than  anybody  by  the  child 
ren.  Many  a  costly  marble  monument  can  say  less  of 
the  man  beneath  it. 


UNACKNOWLEDGED      SERVICES.  193 


LETTER  XXX. 

Working  for  Neighbors— Answers  of  Inquiries  as  to  the  price  of  Land, 
Farms,  &c.—"  Harriet's"  Letter— Apples  Promiscuous  on  Barn-floor— Ac 
count  of  Society  around  us,  &c.,  &c. 

October  22, 1853. 

MY  neighbors,  who  ride  past,  look  upon  Idlewild  as  the 
napkin  in  which  a  talent  is  buried — a  place  where  a  man 
lives  who  never  plants  a  potato.  To  the  annual  estimate 
of  the  produce  of  Orange  County  I  do  not  add  pig  or 
pea.  Yet  I  find  myself  doing  a  great  deal  of  work  of 
which  my  neighbors  are  not  aware — and  for  which,  of 
course,  they  can  give  me  no  credit,  though  it  may  quad 
ruple  exclusively  their  own  pigs  and  peas.  I  do,  at  least, 
the  work  of  one  public  secretary,  in  answering  letters  of 
inquiry  about  the  desirableness  of  the  neighborhood — the 
price  of  land,  the  nature  of  the  soil,  access  to  markets, 
communication  with  the  city,  churches,  water,  public 
spirit,  roads,  taxes,  butchers,  bakers,  and  Sunday  schools. 
Of  the  fifty  thousand  readers  of  the  Home  Journal,  to 
whom  I  have  the  privilege  of  mentioning  Idlewild  and  its 
neighborhood  once  a  week,  many,  of  course,  are  on  the 

9 


194  LETTERS      FROM      IDLEWILD. 

point  of  yielding  to  the  new  movement — business  in  the 
city,  home  in  the  country — and,  of  the  locality  whose 
comfort  and  loveliness  I  thus  indirectly  advertise,  they 
naturally  feel  a  curiosity  to  know  more.  A  private  letter 
addressed  to  me  is  the  simplest  way  of  coming  at  it, 
though  occasionally  I  have  a  visit  from  an  inquirer  in  per 
son.  To  these  letters  I  have  endeavored  to  perform  the 
duty  of  a  good  citizen,  truthfully  furnishing  what  infor 
mation  I  could  pick  up,  and  at  the  same  time  throwing 
an  encouraging  light  on  the  interests  of  the  vicinity.  In 
here  and  there  an  instance,  the  writer  has  been  of  the 
wealthier  class,  in  search  of  a  villa-site  rather  than  a  farm  ; 
and  feeling  that  my  daily  explorings  of  the  scenery  had 
chanced  to  make  me  a  good  reference  on  this  point,  I  have 
freely  offered  myself  as  guide  to  such  secluded  Tempe,  or 
fine  point  of  view,  as  the  purchaser  might  describe  to  me 
for  his  ideal.  To  the  ten  or  twelve  lovely  caprices  of 
nature,  which  I  have  found  hidden  away  for  Paradises  in 
these  romantic  Highlands,  I  trust,  in  a  year  or  two,  to 
have  guided  tasteful  appreciators  and  possessors. 

But,  to  some  of  these  letters  of  inquiry  I  am  called 
upon  to  reply  in  print — the  writer  not  giving  name  or 
address — and  occasionally  I  have  done  so,  by  alluding  to 
the  subject  indirectly,  and  thereby,  perhaps,  supplying  in 
formation  to  others  who  might  be  curious  on  the  same 
point.  One  lies  before  me  at  this  moment  from  a  me- 


SOIL     ADAPTED      TO      FRUITS,     ETC.  105 

chanic  who  has  lost  his  health  in  the  city,  and  who  wishes 
to  change  his  vocation  to  market-gardening  ;  the  great 
rise  in  the  price  of  fruits  and  vegetables  promising  him  a 
better  return  for  his  labor,  while  the  nature  of  the  em 
ployment  will  be  better  for  his  health.  To  his  three  or 
four  queries  I  will  reply  briefly  here.  The  best  possible 
land  for  fruits  and  vegetables  may  be  bought  hereabouts 
for,  from  eighty  to  a  hundred  dollars  an  acre.  Freight- 
steamers  leave  the  dock,  near-by,  every  night,  arriving  at 
a  city  pier  on  the  North  River  before  morning,  thus  giv 
ing  the  produce  of  this  neighborhood  a  cheaper  and  more 
convenient  access  to  New-York  than  from  gardens  on 
Long  Island,  where  wagons  must  be  used  for  some  dis 
tance,  and  where  one  hundred  dollars  rent  is  sometimes 
paid  for  the  acre.  Commission-agents,  who  take  charge 
of  the  produce  and  dispose  of  it,  go  in  each  freight-boat. 
The  sales  from  one  market  farm  of  twenty  acres,  which 
adjoins  Idlewild,  have  exceeded  two  thousand  dollars  in 
the  season  just  closing,  and  the  proprietor  works  his  own 
grounds  with  the  assistance  of  one  man.  The  soil  is  par 
ticularly  favorable  to  the  growth  of  grapes,  now  the  most 
profitable  produce  of  the  country  as  well  as  the  easiest  of 
cultivation. 

I  have  another  letter,  however,  to  which  I  find  the  an 
swer  more  difficult.  It  is  from  the  wife  of  one  of  our 
subscribers  whose  household  gods  are  turning  their  faces 


196  LETTERS      FROM      IDLEWILD. 

this  way — but,  while  he  would  probably  have  inquired 
into  the  soil  and  products,  she  (playing  scribe)  asks  for 
particular  information  with  regard  to  the  society  of  the 
neighborhood.  Perhaps  I  had  better  give  her  letter  as 
it  stands  : — 

"  New  York, . 

"  DEAR  SIR,— 

"  I  read  with  pleasure  of  your  pursuits  and  pleasures  at  Idle- 
wild,  and  the  glorious  country  round  about  you.  How  I  long  to 
get  free  from  this  dusty,  suffocating  city,  and  its  money-loving  in 
habitants,  to  roam  about  among  the  sunny  hills  and  shady  valleys 
of  the  beautiful  body-and-soul-reviving  country. 

"  My  dear  William  and  I,  how  hard  we  have  worked !  how  fru 
gally  we  have  lived !  We  have  denied  ourselves  every  luxury, 
that  we  might  the  sooner  accumulate  the  means  that  will  enable 
us  to  buy  the  much-coveted  farm,  and  leave  behind  all  the  cares 
of  this  busy  life,  and  spend  the  remainder  of  our  days  amid  the 
beauties  of  some  country  home. 

"  But,  sir,  there  is  one  thing  that  gives  rne  much  uneasiness,  and 
I  shall  consider  it  a  great  favor  if  you  will  be  kind  enough  to  put 
me  right.  You  frequently  write  about  the  city  folks  that  visit 
your  place,  and  speak  as  if  they  were  all  that  ever  enter  your 
grounds  ;  and  you  mention  that  fine  old  man  on  the  bridge  (who 
in  the  nature  of  things  must  soon  pass  away).  Now,  sir,  when  the 
long-wished-for  day  shall  come  for  us  to  gain  our  country  home — 
humble  it  must,  of  a  necessity  be — what  society  must  we  look  for  ? 
Are  the  farmers,  mechanics,  and  laboring  men,  mere  boors  ?  Are 
they  really  and  truly  only  the  bone  and  muscle  of  the  country  ? 
Are  there  no  men  and  women  with  hard  hands,  but  soft  and  loving 


PERTINENT      QUERIES 


hearts,  whom  my  children,  from  instinct,  will  climb  upo.i,  who  will 
put  their  hard  toil-worn  hands  upon  their  little  heads,  and  press 
their  sunburnt  faces  to  their  rosy  cheeks,  and  say,  '  God  bless 
them?'  Are  there  no  spirits  there  pregnant  with  celestial  fire 
—hands  that  the  rod  of  empires  might  have  swayed,  or  woke  to 
ecstasy  the  living  lyre  ?  Are  countrymen  so  dull,  are  their  minds 
so  narrow,  that  they  take  no  interest  in  the  glorious  landscape, 
the  glowing  sunset,  the  bubbling  brook,  the  roaring  cataract,  or 
the  singing  of  the  countless  birds  ?  Are  there  none  of  these  that 
dear  William  and  I  can  take  by  the  hand,  and  go  out  beneath  the 
quiet  stars  and  talk  of  the  beauty  of  nature,  and  the  goodness  of 
Him  who  made  this  world  so  lovely  ? 

"  My  dear,  sir,  tell  me  the  whole  truth  about  this  matter,  that  we 
may  know  what  we  must  expect  5  for  you  know  we  must  have  some 
one  with  whom  we  can  hold  sweet  converse.  We  do  not  expect  to 
meet  educated  poets  or  painters  among  the  hard-working  people 
of  the  country,  but  we  want  some  who  have  the  souls  of  such 
within  them,  whom  we  can  call  by  the  sacred  name  of  friend. 

"  If  such  as  these  cannot  be  found—  if  such  noble  souls  do  not 
exist,  apart  from  the  polished  circles  of  city  life,  tell  me  plainly 
and  truly.  If  there  are  none  such  as  I  have  pictured,  then  fare 
well,  a  sad  farewell,  to  my  long-cherished  hopes  of  spending  the 
remainder  of  my  days  in  some  quiet  home,  endeared  to  me  by  the 
love  of  such  noble,  generous  hearts  as  I  have  here  described. 

"  Dear  sir,  I  remain  your  constant  and  admiring  reader, 

"  HARRIET." 

I  am  embarrassed  with  having  only  this  Utter  to  reply 
to,  dear  Mrs.  "Harriet."  Without  seeing  you,  and 
knowing  something  of  your  stage  of  womanhood  and 


LETTERS      FROM      I  D  L  E  W  I  L  D  . 

your  experience  of  life,  I  can  scarcely  choose  with  safety 
between  describing  our  " society"  as  profoundly  stupid, 
or  most  varied  and  agreeable.     There  are  those  to  whom 
it  might  be  either.     I,  myself,  find  it  the  latter— but 
then  I  have  got  through  with  my  crust-experience  of  life, 
and  like  people  neither  more  nor  less  for  the  house  they 
live  in  or  the  clothes  they  wear.     Charming  women  are 
everywhere — some  smothered  under  their  husbands'  good 
dinners,  or  shelved  away  in  bank-stock  and  splendid  car 
riages,  some  unthought-of  in  dairies  or  forgotten  behind 
wash-tubs   and   single   blessedness.     Nature's    noblemen 
are  everywhere — in  town  and  out  of  town,  gloved  and 
rough-handed,  rich  and  poor.     Prejudice  against  a  lord 
because  he  is  a  lord,  is  losing  the  chance  of  finding  a  good 
fellow,  as  much  as  prejudice  against  a  ploughman  because 
he  is  a  ploughman.     Are  you  ready,  dear  Mrs.  "  Har 
riet,"  to  take  a  second  look,  after  reading  the  outside 
label  upon  a  man  or  a  woman,  arid  to  confirm  it,  or  not, 
according  to  God's  mark,  which  will  show  itself  some 
where  ?     If  so,  the   society  of  Highland  Terrace   will 
be  delightful  to  you.     But  let  me  illustrate  it  by  some 
thing  I  found  to  eat,  yesterday,  in  one  of  my  rides. 

Wiled  along  by  the  wilderness  of  unbent  rainbows  and 
the  swoon  of  passionate  stillness  in  the  Autumn  noon,  I 
had  got  farther  from  home  than  my  breakfast  had  pro 
vided  for — seven  or  eight  miles  of  lovely  road,  but  my 


AN      INVITING      SIGHT.  199 

dinner  at  the  other  end  of  it.  The  trot  of  my  high-step 
ping  mare  reminded  me  of  my  aching  void — in  fact, 
I  felt,  like  Mrs.  "Harriet,"  that  "there  must  be  some  one 
with  whom  I  could  hold  sweet  converse,"  if  they  had 
anything  in  the  world  that  I  could  eat.  At  this  crisis  I 
noticed  a  large  barn,  with  the  doors  standing  invitingly 
open,  and  the  floor  covered  with  apples  !  "  Manna  in  the 
wilderness  "  was  my  first  thought ;  but,  with  the  second, 
I  remembered  a  stomach  rather  over-delicate  with  cosset 
ing  and  nursing  ;  and  then  came  a  third  thought  (which 
I  wish  to  recommend  to  Mrs.  "  Harriet's"  notice),  that, 
possibly,  this  might  not  be  hog-feed  altogether — possibly 
not  all  cider-apples  and  colic — better  have  a  look,  at 
least,  before  turning  hungry  away. 

I  dismounted,  and  tied  my  mare  to  the  snake-fence. 
The  barn  was  just  over  the  bars.  I  introduced  myself  to 
the  promiscuous  society  of  the  apples.  But,  thank  God, 
what  a  mistake  I  had  escaped  making  !  Here  was  every 
kind  of  apple  that  grows — the  multitude  of  a  most  varied 
orchard  mellowing  unselected  in  the  sun.  There  was 
Pearmain  and  Pippin,  Greening  and  Lady  Apple,  oblong 
Spitzenburg  and  rosy  Maiden's-blush — there  was  golden 
Russet  and  juicy  Seek-no-fur thcr,  sturdy  Baldwin  and 
handsome  Tewksbury.  Tumbled  together  on  the  rough 
floor  they  certainly  were  ;  but,  with  a  close  look  and  a 
press  of  the  thumb,  you  might  find,  in  every  dozen,  one 


200  LETTERS      FROM     I  D  L  E  W  I  L  D  . 

apple,  at  least,  well  worthy  of  slicing  with  a  silver  knife. 
The  country's  best  stock  and  quality  were  there— only 

they  were  not  barrelled.     Why,  the  pippin  I  ate a  juicy 

satisfier,  picked  from  a  clump  of  cider-apples  and  tardy 
russets — might  have  been  the  tempter  on  a  fruiterer's 
show-basket.  Now,  Mrs.  "Harriet,"  would  you  have 
been  capable  of  satisfying  your  hunger  on  this  barn- 
floor  ;  or  must  you  have  waited  till  the  apples  were  sort 
ed,  barrelled,  and  offered  at  a  city  price  ?  Because 
apples  and  society  are  very  much  alike. 

Without  exactly  making  out  a  census  of  the  agreeable 
people  in  our  neighborhood,  I  may,  however,  be  a  little 
more  explicit  in  my  reply  to  Mrs.    "  Harriet's"   query. 
Within  four  or  five  miles  of  Idlewild,  I  believe  there  are 
most  sorts  of  people.     Fifteen  or  twenty  "  old  families  " 
still  live  very  conservatively  on  their  estates,  within  call 
ing  distance,   and  are  as  learned  on  game  dinners  and 
Madeiras  as  any  "William"  could  desire.     Of  wealthy 
manufacturers,  brick-makers  and  millers,  we  have  a  dozen 
or  more— smarter  men  not  to  be  found.    Quaker  farmers, 
in  easy  circumstances— plain  but  genial  folks  with  well- 
educated  families— are  sprinkled  thickly  over  this  end  of 
the  country.     Of  clergymen,  lawyers,  and  schoolmasters, 
we  have,  I  am  sure,  an  unusually  superior  befalling,  for  a 
country   neighborhood.     We    have    several    unanimous 
belles,  and  several  others  who  would   be   beautiful   to 


OUR      NEIGHBORS.  201 

Raphael's  eye  or  Titian's,  but  whose  unfulfilment  of  des 
tiny,  like  a  sun's  dial  in  a  grave,  happily  keeps  them  cold 
also.  Then,  this  side  of  Snake  Hill,  we  have  a  cele 
brated  prose  author  (Headley),  in  a  beautiful  villa — a 
successful  architect  (Yaux),  building  charming  houses — 
and  a  poet  (Clarence  Cooke),  in  his  cottage  of  "The 
Roses."  There  is  an  anonymous  authoress  or  so,  to 
whom  I  must  thus  anonymously  refer.  And,  after  thus 
showing  what  might  be  "  picked  for  barrelling"  from  our 
society  orchard,  I  might  name  intimates  of  my  own, 
among  the  working  men  and  the  children  that  come 
to  Idle  wild  for  chestnuts.  But  I  will  save  this  last  enu 
meration  till  Mrs.  "Harriet"  comes  herself.  We  will 
then  take  a  look  together  at  the  barn-floor. 


202  LETTERS      FROM      IDLEWILD. 


LETTER   XXXI. 

Autumn  Splendors — Road  Tax  and  amateur  Road  Making — Society  for  Volunteer 
Raking— Difference  of  Roads  and  Neighborhoods— North  and  South  of  Idle- 
wild,  &c.,  &c. 

October  29,  1853. 

SUNRISE — but  what  a  scene  out  of  my  window  !  Has 
our  "fast  world"  overtaken  a  sunset;  or  has  a  sunset 
overslept  itself  and  been  surprised  among  its  blushing 
blankets  by  a  frost-shod  morning  ?  Really,  what  I  see 
is  almost  unnaturally  beautiful.  Idlewild  glen  looks  like 
a  "  rosy  West,"  through  which  one  may  walk  like  a 
garden.  To  the  sickening  to-morrow-ishness  of  life-hopes 
but  a  little  out  of  reach,  birds  that  will  not  quite  wait  to 
have  the  salt  put  upon  their  tails,  and  glowing  sunsets 
always  just  over  an  horizon,  twenty  or  thirty  miles 
farther  on — there  seems,  at  last,  to  be  an  exception. 
Here  are  the  crimson  and  gold,  the  scarlet  and  purple 
of  a  sunset — close-to — touchable — pluckable — and  in  no 
hurry  to  fade  away — tree-clouds,  of  every  color  in  the 
rainbow  and  of  boundless  prodigality  of  beauty,  slumber 
ing  immovably  around  us.  Who  will  come  and  be 


ROAD      MAKING.  203 

astonished  ?  We  are  somebody's  horizon,  of  course,  as 
somebody  is  ours.  Storm-King  mountain  is  the  West, 
from  somewhere,  and  Idlewild  (on  its  other  side)  is  just 
over  the  border-line  betwixt  land  and  sky—the  elusive 
beyond,  into  which  have  dropped  all  the  sunsets  of  a 
Summer.  I  think,  if  they  (whose  West  we  are)  would 
but  step  this  way,  and  look  over  the  horizon,  now,  they 
would  think  we  had  contrived  to  detain  a  "  dying  day" 
or  two  I  Gome,  my  dear  General !  You,  who,  at 
Undercliff,  are  the  other  epaulette  of  West  Point,  and 
the  two  of  you  being  my  next  neighbors  East — come  and 
see  us  with  your  military  eyes  !  The  glen  will  look  to 
you  like  an  encampment  of  sunsets  on  a  halt.  And  then 
take  one  look,  as  a  poet,  and  sigh  over  such  a  heaped-up 
wilderness  of  to-days  showing  brightest  when  passing  into 

to-morrows. 

*.•**.* 

Harvest  in,  and  weather  cool,  our  neighbors  are  work 
ing  out  their  road-tax—most  of  them  preferring  to  pay  it 
in  labor,  though  the  wages  of  a  working-man  are  now  ten 
shillings  a  day,  and  the  law  makes  the  payment  of  five 
shillings  a  day  an  equivalent  for  the  tax.  It  is  a  very 
fair  exponent  of  what  kind  of  a  "  day's-work"  is  usually 
given  to  that  unpopular  master,  "  The  Public."  If  they 
would  halve  it  once  more,  however,  it  would  be  a  public 
advantage,  I  think— going  over  half  as  much  ground,  and 


204  LETTERS      FROM      IDLEWILD. 

not  hauling  half  as  many  loose  stones  upon  the  track.  A 
pick-axe,  too,  which  would  remove  the  stumbling-stones 
from  the  old  road,  and  level  the  ruts,  would  do  better 
service  than  the  plough  and  drag,  which  only  cover  a  bad 
old  road  with  a  worse  new  one — but  then  a  pick-axe  is  the 
Paddy-tool,  for  which  the  brain,  at  the  upper  end  of  the 
Yankee's  spine,  seems  to  disturb,  somehow,  the  equili 
brium  which  keeps  up  the  willingness  of  the  elbow  ;  and, 
if  the  farmer  brings  team  and  plough,  it  reckons  as  a  man- 
and-a-half  extra.  So  there  are  more  ploughs  than  pick 
axes,  and  the  roads  are  "mended"  by  ripping  open  and 
heaping  up— the  "  charming  drive  "  of  the  Summer  being 
thus  converted  into  a  prolonged  potato-patch. 

Amateur  road-making  is  a  small-pox,  of  which  the 
remedy  (a  vaccination-tax,  to  pay  an  engineer  for  much 
less  labor  judiciously  applied)  will,  of  course,  make  its 
way  very  slowly  ;  but,  if  it  were  not  so  unpopular  to  pre 
scribe  for  any  public  epidemic,  I  should  like  to  suggest  an 
alleviative,  meantime,  and  set  the  example  by  first  apply 
ing  it  myself.  An  hour  or  two  of  labor  with  an  iron  rake, 
after  the  path-master  has  finished  his  job,  would  remove 
the  loose  stones  from  almost  any  half-mile  of  the  soft  dirt 
he  leaves  in  heaps,  and  vastly  facilitate,  and  better  its 
packing  and  hardening.  This,  repeated  once  a  month 
throughout  the  year,  would  be  a  gain  to  the  country  at 
large,  if  it  were  only  in  wheel-wear  and  stumble-damage  ; 


MAKING   AN   EXAMPLE   OF   A  RAKE.    205 

but  those  who  are  pious  aud  have  land  to  sell  along  the 
river,  should  be  reminded  also  of  the  greater  tendency  to 
profane  language  on  stony  roads,  and  of  the  air  of  discom 
fort  which  "rough  going"  gives  to  the  neighborhood,  in 
the  eyes  of  visitors  who  might  otherwise  fancy  the  scenery 
and  "  buy  lots."  A  modest  citizen  would  not  venture  to 
be  the  founder  of  a  Society,  of  course,  without  the 
urgency  of  some  grand  moral  and  utilitarian  improve 
ment  ;  but,  with  the  two  objects  of  piety  and  profit  just 
named,  I  think  I  might  safely  propose  to  the  inhabitants 
of  Highland  Terrace,  the  formation  of  a  Society  for 
Voluntary  Raking— every  member  agreeing,  in  addition 
to  his  road-tax,  to  keep  the  highway  clear  of  loose  stones 
in  front  of  his  own  walls  and  fences.  My  own  road-tax 
(twenty-one  days)  I  have  preferred  to  settle  by  the  pecu 
niary  substitution,  being  handier  at  a  pen  than  a  pick-axe; 
but  the  "  voluntary  raking"  I  will  do,  in  my  own  proper 

person,  commencing  to-morrow  morning,  October . 

After  that  date,  I  promise  my  brother-farmers  the 
example  of  a  diligent  rake  along  the  fences  of  Idlewild, 
trusting  to  their  prompt  approval  and  co-operation. 

The  junction  of  the  Moodna  with  the  Hudson  (close  to 
the  river-gate  of  Idlewild)  divides  two  neighborhoods 
which  are  in  very  different  stages  of  advancement,  as  to 
excellence  of  roads.  From  the  north  side  of  the  Moodna 
to  Newburgh,  four  miles,  it  is  as  smooth  wheeling  as  in 


206  LETTERS     FROM     IDLEWILD. 

the  Hyde  Park  of  London  ;  while,  from  the  south  side,  in 
any  direction,  it  is  as  rough  as  public  spirit  exercised 
upon  amateur  road-mending  could  well  make  it.  The  dif 
ference  is  owing  partly  to  the  longer  settlement  of  the 
Newburgh  side,  and  to  its  being  the  river-road,  along  the 
estates  of  wealthy  proprietors  ;  but  it  is  owing  still  more 
to  the  liberality  and  enterprise  of  an  individual — the 
munificent  "  Commodore,77  so  well  known  on  the  Hudson, 
having  long  held  the  office  of  "  path-master."  At  the 
toll-bridge  over  the  Moodna,  the  highway  leaves  the 
river,  and  enters  upon  a  track  of  smaller  farms  and 
wilder  scenery  ;  and  worse  roads,  with  this  change,  are 
both  natural  and  excusable.  Close  as  they  are  to  each 
other,  the  two  neighborhoods  are  probably  half  a  century 
apart  in  their  notions  of  "  what  will  answer 77  for  a  road 
An  idea  of  the  standard,  on  our  side,  may  be  gathered 
from  a  reply  made  to  me,  not  long  ago.  I  had  engaged 
one  of  my  neighbors  to  furnish  me  with  eight  or  ten 
heavy  sticks  of  timber,  for  the  construction  of  a  couple 
of  bridges  across  Idlewild  brook.  They  were  to  be 
"  snaked  down  right  away.77  Three  or  four  weeks  passed 
without  my  seeing  anything  of  them,  however,  and  I  was 
about  calling  on  my  friend  to  enquire  why,  when  a  wood- 
chopper,  with  his  axe  on  his  shoulder,  passed  me  on  the 
road,  just  at  sundown.  "  I  have  been  cutting  down  your 
sticks,"  said  he,  as  we  exchanged  a  nod  at  meeting. 


A     ROAD      WITH      A      "  SHORT      CUT."  207 

"  Ah,  then,  I  may  look  for  them  to-morrow  ?"  I  replied, 
somewhat  pleased  at  the  prospect  of  soon  having  my 
bridges  passable.  "  Why,  no  1"  he  said,  feeling  of  his 
chin,  with  a  thoughtful  estimate  of  the  difficulties  ;  "not 
so  soon  as  that,  quite.  You  see  they  are  a  mile  or  two 
back  in  the  woods,  and  there's  a  mile  of  road  to  cut,  before 
we  can  snake  'em  out.  But  you'll  have  'em  next  week,  I 
guess."  And  the  "  mile  of  road"  was  cut,  and  the 
timbers  duly  made  their  appearance,  five  days  after 
wards. 


208  LETTERS      FROM      IDLEWILD. 


LETTER  XXXII. 

Discovery  of  an  Iron  Mine  in  the  Neighborhood— Lack  of  National  Quickness  at 
Beautifying  Scenery— Poem  on  the  Flood-ravages  at  Idlewild— Drawing  and 
Landscape-Gardening,  &c.,  &c. 

November  5,  1853. 

WE  have  an  addition  to  the  moving  scenery  of  our 
neighborhood,  in  processions  of  broad-wheeled,  four-horse 
wagons,  laden  with  iron  ore,  a  recently  discovered  pro 
duct  of  the  valley  of  the  Moodna.  The  newly  opened  mine 
is  a  remarkably  rich  one,  about  two  miles  back  from  the 
Hudson,  and  the  enormous  wagons  with  their  fine  horses, 
and  other  signs  of  the  lavish  enterprise  with  which  it  is 
worked,  give  quite  a  stir  to  the  highway,  usually  so  quiet 
after  the  departure  of  summer  boarders.  The  scientific 
miners,  whose  divining-rod  has  made  such  a  true  dip,  tell 
us  that  there  is  coal  under  the  bed  of  our  own  romantic 
brook.  I  find  its  most  picturesque  gorge  was  once  sold 
for  a  slate-quarry,  too.  And,  between  these  alarms,  and 
a  bank  or  two  of  such  clay  as  they  make  bricks  of, 
and  the  expression  of  surprise,  by  now  and  then  an  engi 
neering  visiter,  at  the  "  beautiful  water  privileges  "  we 


THE      NYMPH      OF      IDLEWILD.  209 

throw  away  (in  two  hundred  feet  of  descent  of  brook  be 
tween  our  upper  fence  and  the  Hudson),  I  am  in  daily 
terror  of  finding  our  lovely  uselessness  grown  valuable. 
The  nymph  of  Idlewild,  the  Egeria  of  our  secluded  brook, 
might,  of  course,  be  too  saleable  to  keep  ;  and  I  feel  like 
the  peasant  mother  of  Italy — when  her  daughter  is  ripen 
ing  into  womanhood,  too  beautiful  not  to  be  a  high-priced 
model  for  the  sculptors  and  painters — in  dread  of  the 
hour  when  home  could  no  longer  afford  to  keep  her 
sacred. 

But  our  lovely  nymph,  so  in  peril,  is  not  likely  to  pass 
into  a  utility,  unlamented  or  unsung.  There  are  those 
who  watch  her  with  the  inspired  eye  of  tenderness  and 
poetry.  A  poem  is  beside  me — one  I  had  no  thought  of 
publishing,  till  this  chance  turn  of  a  thought  made  it  so 
fitting  as  to  be  excusably  given  to  the  public — suggested 
by  my  record  of  the  ravages  of  the  beauty  of  our  valley 
by  the  recent  avalanche  and  freshet.  It  comes  anony 
mously,  but  the  hand  is  a  lady's.  I  shall  look  to  her  for 
a  monody  over  our  beloved  Egeria,  should  her  sacred 
veil  of  privacy  and  beauty  be  rent  from  her  by  hard-fisted 
utility.  But  thus  runs  her  sweet  poem,  written  to  be 
read  at  Idlewild  only  :— 


210  LETTERS     FROM     IDLEWILD. 


THE  FLOOD    AT  IDLEWILD. 

A  torrent  swept  on  in  its  foaming  wrath, 
And  destruction  marked  its  stormy  path  ; 
It  deluged  the  valley,  it  washed  the  steep, 
Then  scaled  its  sides  with  a  mighty  leap  ; 
And  we  saw  the  tall  trees  sway  and  cower, 
As  it  hurried  on  with  remorseless  power. 

There  lay  in  its  path  a  spot  so  fair, 
It  seemed  no  evil  should  enter  there  : 
For,  to  it,  unnumbered  hearts  were  bound, 
And  winged  thoughts  were  hovering  round, 
And,  at  the  touch  of  a  poet,  smiled 
The  woods  and  dells  of  Idlewild. 

But  what  cared  the  flood,  as  it  thundered  on, 
That  a  thousand  nameless  charms  were  gone, 
Which  the  kindling  eye  of  the  bard  had  traced, 
Evoked  by  his  will  from  the  trackless  waste. 
It  did  not  pause  in  its  mad  career, 
Nor  spare  the  spot  to  so  many  dear. 

But  on  through  Idlewild  it  sped, 
Overflowing  the  quiet  streamlet's  bed, 
And  lingering  not,  though  it  bore  away 
The  love  and  labor  of  many  a  day ; 
And  on  it  gazed,  with  mournful  eyes, 
The  framer  of  this  Paradise. 


A     CURIOUS     REFLECTION.  211 

Would  we  could  choose  his  lot  for  him ; 
No  cloud  should  ever  his  pathway  dim, 
But  joy's  -clear  sunshine  his  life  illume, 
Untouched  or  unshadowed  by  grief  or  gloom  ; 
And  his  beautiful  Idlewild  should  be 
From  the  touch  of  the  spoiler  ever  free. 

But  he  is  afloat  on  life's  stormy  sea, 

And  chance  and  change  must  his  portion  be, 

And  the  love  that  would  gladly  gild  his  way, 

Can  only  look  above  and  pray, — 

God  shield  him  from  trial !— God  keep  him  from  wo  I 

And  henceforth  but  with  bliss  may  his  path  overflow ! 

A  HOME  JOURNALIST. 

Bristol,  Pa,,  August  22, 1358. 

I  have  thought  it  curious,  by  the  way,  that,  among  the 
many  who  have  strolled  with  me  through  our  wilderness 
of  acclivities  and  wood-paths — coming  upon  all  kinds  of 
views  and  landscape  surprises,  and  seeing  every  variety 
of  surface,  and  every  possible  tangle  of  wood,  rock  and 
water — no  one  has  ever  yet  suggested  an  embellishment, 
or  pointed  out  a  natural  beauty  that  might  be  modified 
or  taken  advantage  of.  Yet  the  improvements  that 
might  be  made,  seem  to  me  as  obvious  as  they  are  almost 
numberless— charming  paths  that  might  be  cut,  precipices 
and  water-falls  that  might  terminate  vistas,  terraces  that 
might  be  turned  into  glades  and  lawns,  chasms  that  might 


212  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE  WILD. 

be  romantically  bridged,  and  rapids  that  should  be  seen 
from  eminences.  Admiring  the  little  that  is  done  very 
kindly  and  warmly,  as  beautiful,  the  imagination  of  a  visi- 
ter  does  not  seem  to  busy  itself  to  lend  a  thought  as  to 
what  might  be  done  to  make  it  more  beautiful  still. 
Omni-creative  as  the  American  mind  would  seem  to  be, 
the  creation  of  beauty  seems  not  to  be  among  our  habitual 
and  alert  instincts,  as  a  people.  I  have  felt  a  lack  of  sym 
pathy  in  this,  sometimes — not  atoned  for  by  the  many 
discoveries  that  are  made  of  the  salable  values  that  lie 
hidden  among  our  paths  and  woodlands.  A  highly 
educated  gentleman,  whose  intelligence  and  good  sense  I 
very  much  admire — so  handsome  a  man,  too,  that  he  is 
ungrateful  to  Nature  for  not  being  alive  to  what  else  she 
has  done  that  is  admirable — was  walking  with  me  in  the 
glen,  the  other  day,  and  I  was  showing  him  a  kind  of 
rocky  parlor  at  the  foot  of  the  rapids,  where  the  springs 
trickle  in  curtains  down  the  walls,  and  the  floor  of  stone 
lies  half  islanded  between  rapids  and  still  water.  Over 
hung  by  a  crag  on  the  eastern  side,  it  is  dark  and  cool 
from  sunrise  till  nearly  noon,  and  I  looked  at  my  friend, 
as  his  beautiful  profile  was  relieved  against  the  brown 
wet  rock,  and  expected  him  to  jump  at  once  to  my 
favourite  idea — what  a  place  to  turn  into  a  grotto  for 
summer  breakfasts  !  His  large  hazel  eyes  fell  on  point  after 
point  of  the  loveliness  around  him.  "  Ah  1"  said  he, 


BEAUTIFYING      SCENERY.  213 

"  when  they  come  to  build  that  depot  for  the  Syracuse 
and  Hoboken  Railroad,  this  stone  will  sell,  I  can  tell 
you  !"  Yet  a  charming  woman  was  listening,  when  this 
precipitate  was  thrown  into  the  romance  of  the  spot. 

Downing's  genius  was  our  country's  one  solitary  prom 
ise  of  a  supply  for  this  lack  of  common  currency — this 
scarcity  of  beauty  coin  in  our  cvery-day  pockets.  He 
was  the  one  person  who  could  be  sent  for— by  a  gentle 
man  who  had  purchased  land  for  a  country-seat,  and  who 
had  not  given  up  his  attention  to  the  development  of 
natural  beauty— to  look  at  fields  and  woods,  and  tell  what 
could  be  made  out  of  them.  It  takes  a  habit  of  looking 
at  such  things— at  Nature  wild  in  contrast  with  Nature 
improved — to  know  how  to  lay  out  paths  and  clump 
woods,  plant  avenues  and  inlay  brooks  among  greensward 
and  foliage.  It  takes  a  poet,  perhaps— or,  certainly,  it 
takes  imagination  mingled  with  taste  and  practical  good 
sense — to  follow  it  skilfully  as  a  profession.  I  am  glad 
to  know  that  the  poet  who  was  a  brother-in-law  of  Down 
ing—Clarence  Cooke— and  who  studied  under  him  and 
was  much  with  him,  has  made  it  the  vocation  of  his  life. 
He  is  employed  at  present  on  one  or  two  estates  in  the 
neighborhood  of  Newburgh,  and  can  be  addressed,  on 
such  subjects,  at  his  own  cottage  of  "  The  Roses,"  at  that 
place. 


214  LETTERS      F  11  0  M      1  i>  h  E  W  I  L  D  . 


LETTER   XXXIII. 

Sudden  Fall  of  Leaves — November  Haze — Fame  of  Newspaper-wrappers — Nam 
ing  of  a  Village— Legend  of  MOODNA,  the  Indian  Chief— Importance  of  Immor 
talizing  Men  and  Events  by  the  Naming  of  Towns,  &c.,  Ac. 

November  12, 1858. 

NOVEMBER  the  first,  and  almost  every  leaf  already 
fallen  !  The  trees  seein  subject  to  the  same  law  as  we. 
With  the  extraordinary  vegetation  of  the  wet  and  warm 
summer,  they  have  lived  a  little  too  fast,  and  are  paying 
for  it  by  a  more  early  decay.  It  is  an  apoplexy  of 
Autumn.  During  a  sudden  shower  which  I  watched 
from  my  window,  about  the  middle  of  October,  every 
large  drop  seemed  to  strike  off  a  leaf  of  full  vigor.  One 
hickory  tree,  more  particularly,  was  almost  wholly 
stripped  in  an  hour — the  foliage,  too,  as  it  lay  upon  the 
ground,  showing  very  little  of  the  usual  preparatory 
embrowning.  It  would  be  disrespectful,  of  course,  to 
blame  Nature  (though  she  has  cut  up  several  remarkable 
shines,  with  her  weather  and  water,  this  A.D.  1853  !) 
but  I  must  venture  to  mourn  over  this  loss  of  drapery  for 
our  Indian  summer.  And  not  only  for  the  fullness  and 
beauty  of  the  trees  (whose  trusting  and  adhering  foliage 


FAME'S    TABLET.  215 

usually  denies  the  winter  to  have  come,  till  long  after  the 
blowing  of  the  first  bitter  winds  of  November),  but,  for 
the  actual  shade,  I  mourn  as  well — here  and  there  a 
noon  of  December  itself  being  too  warm  for  comfort  in 
the  sun.  There  is  one  curtaining  of  the  landscape  still 
left_our  forlorn  hope  for  the  beauty  of  this  year's  Indian 
summer — the  November  haze.  Even  the  splintered  ribs  of 
the  old  Storm-king  look  graceful,  through  that  ;  and 
those,  by  the  way,  who  have  not  seen  our  Hudson  High 
lands  in  one  of  these  English  atmospheres,  should  vary 
their  lounge  at  Willianis-Stevens-and-Williams's  window, 
by  a  railroad  trip  hither  on  the  first  of  those  dreamy- 
looking  days.  Painted  landscapes  are  but  "cold  vic 
tuals"  to  such  pictures  as  we  then  have,  lying  warm 

around  us. 

#  ***** 

The  newspaper-wrapper  is  Fame's  most  enduring 
tablet.  No  word  can  die  that  is  once  scribbled  on 
brown  paper  a£  a  Post-office  direction.  And  it  was  with 
a  realizing  sense  of  this  responsible  opportunity  to  eter 
nize  something  or  somebody,  that  I  lately  found  the 
naming  of  our  new-sprung  village  kindly  deferred  to  me. 
Hidden  away  in  a  crook  of  the  stream,  the  secluded  nest 
of  factories  and  cottages  in  the  next  valley  to  Idlewild, 
has  thriven  like  a  swarm  of  insects  in  the  folds  of  a  rose 
-the  beauty  of  the  overlapping  hills,  and  sheltering 


216  LETTERS      FROM      IDLEWILD, 

woods,  not  at  all  blemished  by  their  teeming  industry- 
till  at  last  they  have  outgrown  even  the  town  of  whose 
town-ship  they  were  but  a  distant  and  nameless  part. 
Larger  and  far  more  prosperous  than  New  Windsor 
(from  which  they  were  divided,  also,  by  a  stream  and  a 
toll-bridge,  and  a  long  and  hilly  roadj,  their  erroneous 
direction  must  still  be  "  New  Windsor,"  unless  the  Post 
master-General  would  graciously  recognize  the  village  as 
large  and  separate  enough  to  have  a  name  of  its  own. 
After  a  summer  of  discussion,  the  petition  was  drawn  up 
and  signed  by  the  proprietors  and  residents,  forwarded, 
replied  to  by  a  letter  of  minute  inquiry,  and  finally  grant 
ed  some  ten  days  ago.  MOODXA,  Orange  County,  is  now 
a  note  in  the  Postmaster-General's  anthem  of  ever-swell 
ing  repetition — a  hero's  name,  familiar,  hereafter,  while 
the  world  lasts,  to  Fame  and  the  clerks  of  the  Post- 
office. 

The  choosing  of  the  name  brought  up  various  embar 
rassing  questions.  If  it  had  not  been  an  important 
principle  that  the  honor  should  be  rigidly  a  posthumous 
one,  there  are  two  venerable  septuagenarians  among  the 
present  inhabitants — models,  both,  of  private  lives 
brought  to  a  beautiful  completeness — for  either  of  whom 
it  would  have  been  acknowledged  by  the  neighborhood  to 
be  a  well-deserved  memorial.  More  practically,  still,  it 
might  record  the  enterprise  and  manufactures  of  the  mills 


THE      CHRISTENING.  217 

and  factories  of  the  place.  I  had  an  unacknowledged 
poetical  hankering  to  call  it  Lotus-dale,  from  the  pro 
fusion  of  water-lilies  which  open  their  fragrant  cups 
among  the  ponds  and  sluices.  Then  Lafayette  had  once 
been  quartered  with  his  staff,  in  its  prettiest  house,  and  I 
did  not  see  how  my  friend  Lossing,  the  Historian,  would 
excuse  me  for  not  commemorating  that.  But  no  ! 
There  was  an  earlier  claim  than  any  of  these.  A  savage, 
whose  wigwam  was  here — one  of  those  from  whom  our 
fathers  took  the  soil,  and  to  whose  virtues  at  least  we 
owe  a  memory — had,  on  this  spot,  set  the  Christian  an 
unsurpassed  example.  Tradition  still  told  the  story, 
though  it  differed  as  to  his  name.  Whether  the  stream 
was  called  after  him,  "  MOODNA  Creek,"  or  whether,  as 
some  say,  Murdner  is  the  word,  and  the  name  of  the 
English  wife  for  whose  life  he  gave  his  own,*  the  heroic 
deed,  we  thought,  would  be  best  commemorated  by 
adopting  the  former  supposition,  and  naming  the  village 
MOODNA.  In  that  word,  now  brown-wrapper-ized  till 
doomsday,  is  told  the  story  of  an  Indian  chief,  who  took 
the  death-blow  of  the  tomahawk  when  his  silence  only 
would  have  made  the  white  woman  the  victim.  Children 
will  be  better  started,  I  think,  who  are  born  where 
such  nobleness  is  remembered  to  have  been  native  to  the 
soil — cradled  in  the  home  of  a  great  deed.  The  factory  - 

*  For  this  story  see  page  39  et  seq. 

10 


218        LETTERS   FROM   IDLE  WILD. 

bells  ring  poetry,  and  iterate  a  sweet  lesson  perpetually, 
as  Moodna  bells.  Idlewild,  near  Moodna,  makes  Idlewild 
worth  more.  It  is  a  privilege  to  have  that  bright 
example  writ  with  sweet  repetition  on  the  outside  of  every 
letter  that  comes  to  me — better,  at  least,  than  "  Corn 
wall,"  as  before,  the  name  of  an  English  haunt  of 
begrimed  over-toil  and  starvation.  In  a  country  where 
new  towns  are  being  named  every  day,  it  may  not  be 
trifling  with  public  attention,  perhaps,  to  ask  for  a  little 
more  care  over  the  bestowal  of  this  single-word  immor 
tality,  this  ever-strengthening  brown-wrapper  commemo 
ration  and  familiar-ization. 


NOVEMBER      SUNSHINE,  219 


LETTER  XXXIV. 

Mellow  Middle  in  a  November  day— Ascent  to  Storm-King—Road  from  New- 
burg  to  West  Point— Chances  for  Human  Eyries— Difference  of  Climate  be 
tween  the  two  Mountain-sides — Home-like  familiarity  of  a  Brook,  &c.,  &c. 

November  19, 1854. 

THE  scoop  of  the  rich  yellow  centre  from  a  slice  of  nut 
meg  melon,  leaving  a  respectable  depth  of  the  colder- 
tinted  unripeness  at  either  end,  is  very  like  the  cut  of 
warm  and  fruity  sunshine  which  lies  mellow  in  the  middle 
of  a  November  day — say  from  ten  o'clock  till  three— and  by 
confining  oneself  to  these  delicious  mouthfuls  of  noon,  the 
summer  feast  of  out-doors  need  scarce  be  perceptibly  les 
sened.  An  artist  might  reasonably  miss  the  long  shadows 
of  morning  and  evening,  it  is  true.  But  the  renewed 
overflowingness  and  sparkle  of  the  water-courses,  at  this 
season,  redeem  any  tameness  of  the  landscape  ;  and,  with 
exercise  in  such  elastic  sunshine,  one  looks,  somehow, 
through  different  eyes.  What  would  be  glare  in  summer, 
is  joyous  illumination  now. 

We  started  after  breakfast  yesterday  (Nov.  5th),  to 
ascend  to  the  cloud-piled  shoulder  of  old  Storm-King,  and 


ttfl  MCTTBJtH      KIIOM      I  I>  I.  K  W  II,  1)  . 

look  over  upon  the  parade-ground  of  Went  Point — the 
young  "sodgers"  being  near  neighbors  of  ourH  by 
•tr..i"lit  line,  though  the  mountain  between  is  a  mile 
or  two  thick  through  HH  un-tunnelled  bottom,  and  divides 
us  an  effectually  aH  the  Appenines  cut  off  Florence  from 
IJol'igiia.  With  the  work  made  by  the  waU'r-spout  of  a 
few  weeks  ago,  it  promised  to  be  something  like  the  cat's 
walk  over  the  house  tops,  for  any  smoothness  of  road. 
We  should  properly  have  been  mounted  on  mules.  No 
thing  ever  happens  to  a  lady  on  horseback,  however  ;  and 
my  neighbor's  daughter,  and  my  own  daughter  and  niece, 
were  young  travellers  enough  to  rather  wish  for  an  adven 
ture,  while  my  neighbor  and  J  were  old  travellers  enough 
to  make  the  best  of  one.  Besides,  we  were  out  for  the  idle 
ness  of  an  autumn  day.  We  could  Jet  people  in  Broad 
way  see  a  month's  sight  in  a  morning-— we  could  let  elec 
tricity  travel  its  300,000  miles  a  second — and  be  happy, 
ourselves,  for  that  day,  with  neither  the  fashionable  indi 
gestion  of  event  nor  the  popular  distancing  of  thought 
and  observation. 

The  principal  road  across  the  mountains,  from  New- 
burgh  to  West  Point,  is  a  fork  or  two  farther  west  than 
the  pass  for  which  we  pointed  our  horses'  heads  ;  and, 
after  leaving  the  Highland  level  upon  which  Jdlcwild 
stands,  we  had  little  to  follow  except  the  track  of  the 
woodsman  aud  such  gullies  as  had  been  ploughed  by  the 


SUCCESSFUL     CULTIVATION.  221 

floods.  The  ascent  of  thi-;  range  is  by  no  means  the  gra 
dual  acclivity  that  it  looks  to  be,  from  below.  Jt  is  a 
labyrinth  of  knolls  and  hollows,  over  which  one  travels 
like  an  ant  through  a  banket  of  eggs,  corning-  continually 
upon  Krnall  mountain  farms,  islanded  among  irreclaimable 
rock.s,  and  BO  hidden  behind  and  among  them  as  to  seem 
contrived  by  hermits  for  inextricable  privacy.  Oh  what 
eyries,  for  such  human  eagles  as  wish  to  live  alone,  and 
yet  have  the  world  within  pouncing  reach  !  The  bright 
! --.firings  make  miniature  meadows,  just  large  enough  for 
the  rear  window  of  a  mountain  hut  to  look  out  upon, 
and  the  crags  and  slopes  are  the  models  of  walls  for 
grasses.  Hheep  and  cows  are  charmingly  at  home  there — 
fences  unnecessary — wood  plenty — land  eight  to  ten  dol 
lars  the  acre — West  Point  music  gratis  with  every  South 
wind — and  society  and  other  epidemics  wholly  unknown. 
These  attractions  prove  sufficient  for  one  very  cultivated 
man,  by  the  way.  lie  tried  city-life  for  a  while,  after 
leaving  college,  and  then  expended  a  small  competency  in 
a  farm  on  this  ridge.  After  getting  his  cottage  built,  he 
•:ought  out  a  beautiful  and  poor  girl,  wholly  uneducated, 
married  her,  and  commenced  cultivating  a  virgin  mind 
and  a  virgin  farm.  Both  succeeded  to  his  entire  content 
ment.  His  wife  grew  a  lady  of  uncommon  dignity  and 
intelligence  ;  and,  while  they  passed  their  evenings  with 
books,  their  farm  and  dairy  were  models  by  daylight. 


222  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE  WILD. 

The  story  was  told  me  by  one  of  my  working  neighbors 
who  knew  them  well. 

Somewhere  about  noon  we  came  upon  brooks  running 
the  other  way,  and  began  to  smell  (we  thought)  a  little 
of  the  salt  air  of  the  seaboard — the  ridge  we  had  mount 
ed  being  an  effectual  Panama  between  this  and  an  inland 
air  much  more  Pacific  for  the  lungs.  In  the  cannon 
of  the  military  post  at  the  foot  of  the  descent  on  one  side 
and  the  rolls  of  Orange  County  butter  at  the  foot  of  the 
descent  on  the  other,  my  chronic  cough-memory  found  a 
very  correct  exponent  of  the  two  climates  which  the 
mountain  divides.  To  my  eminent  friend  Doctor  Gray, 
who  prescribed  the  velvet  side  of  this  Isthmus  so  near 
New  York  (instead  of  the  Trip  to  the  Tropics  which  I 
took  in  spite  of  him,  and  found  so  ineffectual),  I  owe 
what  gratitude  my  present  better  health  is  worth  ;  and  I 
mention  it  here  for  the  benefit  of  the  large  public  of  con 
sumptive  given-over-dom  of  which  I  have  now  ceased  to 
be  one.  To  the  pulmonary  patients  who  abound  in  our 
harsh  seaboard  atmosphere,  this  Highland  Terrace  is  a 
far  better  Malvern  than  the  Antilles — the  poor,  at  least, 
should  know. 

Descending  through  a  silence-bound,  tree-riven,  wilder 
ness  (a  place  that  feels,  as  you  ride  through  it,  like  a 
chaos,  with  an  eternity  or  two  still  on  handj,  we  came 
suddenly  to  a  breathless  little  mountain  lake,  sprinkled 


AN      AID      TO      PATRIOTISM.  223 

with  rock  islands,  and  lovely  enough  for  a  poem  or 
a  dream.  Its  outlet  is  a  water-slide,  overhung  by  a 
romantic  crag,  and,  just  now,  a  flood  dashes  brilliantly 
down  the  slanting  precipice;  though,  in  summer,  I 
believe,  when  most  resorted  to  by  riding  parties  from 
West  Point  and  Cozzens's,  the  cascade  is  perversely  dry. 
Hereabouts  terminates  the  military  road  commenced  by 
the  Government  as  a  Shnplon  between  West  Point  and 
Newburgh  ;  and  into  the  proposed  route  of  this  we  now 
struck  to  return  to  Idle  wild.  Our  neighbor,  who  with 
his  fair  daughter  had  accompanied  us,  has  a  family  of 
yeomen  sons — manly  fellows  at  the  perfection  of  the  first 
American  remove  from  English  stock — and  the  stone 
house  of  one  of  them  stands  not  far  from  the  lake,  in  the 
centre  of  a  mountain  farm.  The  rosy  wife  soon  spread 
an  excellent  dinner  for  us.  General  Washington,  who 
often  earned  an  appetite  by  the  same  ride  (for,  it  was  the 
only  road  between  Fort  Putnam  and  his  head-quarters  at 
Newburgh),  would  have  felt  his  patriotism  improved, 
many  a  time,  I  doubt  not,  by  as  good  a  dinner  on  the 
same  spot. 

Idlewild  brook  takes  its  rise  hereabouts  ;  and,  as  the 
road  down  the  mountain  follows  its  course  for  three  miles, 
till  it  brings  us  to  our  gate  (the  stream  here  leaving  the 
highway,  and  plunging  into  a  deep  gorge  of  our  own 
grounds,  quite  hidden  from  public  view) — it  was  like 


224        LETTERS   FROM   IDLEWILD. 

being  accompanied  home  by  a  member  of  the  family  acci 
dentally  found  astray  among  the  hills.  How  domes 
ticated  a  brook  gets  to  be,  to  be  sure  !  We  praise 
its  beauty — we  blame  its  violence — we  have  a  good-bye 
for  it  when  we  leave  home,  and  a  feeling  of  how-d'ye-do 
when  we  see  it  again — take  pride  in  it  when  the  stranger 
sees  its  loveliness,  and  confide  to  it  (when  we  are  alone 
together)  many  a  thought  elsewhere  untold,  .many  a  wild 
dream,  many  a  sadness.  For  moods  which  could  not 
bear  solitude,  the  running  brook  is  often  company 
enough.  It  was  reasonable  in  the  ancients  to  recognize 
them  as  nymphs.  They  grow  to  seem  conscious  and 
friendly,  as  the  motionless  rocks  never  could  do.  And 
we  frequent  them,  open  heart  and  mind  to  them,  let  their 
murmur  dispel  melancholy,  and  let  them  wile  away  dis 
content  with  their  music  without  words — believing  in 
them  irresistibly,  or  with  the  same  instinctive  and  vague 
credence  with  which  we  believe  it  forever  to  be  the  same 
brook,  though  the  same  water  is  never  seen  in  it  twice. 


STICK-A-PIN-THERE.  225 


LETTER    XXXV. 

Instance  of  Stick-a-pin-there-Survey  of  Premises  after  a  Freshet-History  of 
a  Dam— Specimen  of  Yankee  Coax-ocracy,  &c.,  &c. 

Noveniber  26  1853. 

THE  out-door  improvements  at  Idlewild  have  here  and 
there  a  marginal  note,  visible  only  to  myself— a  point  of 
country  knowledge  I  have  learned  in  the  doing  of  them, 
or  a  light  they  have  chanced  to  throw  upon  the  charac 
ter  of  neighbors  or  working-men— and  I  am  tempted  to 
ink  over  one  of  these  viewless  memoranda,  occasionally, 
for  the  reading  of  others  besides  myself,  though  it  is 
rather  ticklish  literature  on  the  spot  where  it  is  written. 
We  are  so  in  the  habit  of  thinking  books  and  newspapers 
to  be  altogether  about  distant  places  and  other  people, 
that  individuals— country-folks  particularly— are  startled 
to  find  themselves  punctured,  even  with  the  "  stick-a-pin- 
there  "  of  approval  or  admiration. 

I  went  down   yesterday,  after  the  abundant  freshet 

which  has  been  flooding  our  brook  for  the  last  few  days, 

with  rather   a  nervous  curiosity   to   see   whether    the 

dignity    of     American     aristocracy    was    vindicated— 

10* 


226  LETTERS      FROM      IDLEWILD. 

whether  the  dam  of  my  big  pond,  that  is  to  say,  which 
was  built  in  defiance  of  it,  and  has  stood  through  a  year 
of  unusual  wear  and  tear,  unhumbled  and  water-tight — 
was  still  curving  its  broad  lip  over  the  meadow.  There 
it  flowed,  however,  a  silvery  sheet  of  eighty  unbroken 
feet  across,  and  there  swam  the  boat  upon  the  saucy 
brimfulness  of  the  rebellious  pond  above  ;  and  how  and 
why  this  continued  proof  that  it  was  a  "good  job,"  is 
unpalatable  to  the  predominant  nationality  of  our  neigh 
borhood,  I  may  show  by  a  little  history  of  the  building 
of  it. 

There  was  one  unsightly  spot  in  the  brook — the  place 
where  it  left  the  rocky  gorge,  and  first  spread  upon  the 
level  of  the  upper  meadow,  six  or  eight  feet  above  the 
Hudson.  Its  descent,  here,  in  the  frequent  freshets,  was 
too  violent  for  the  grass  to  grow,  and  so,  for  the  greater 
part  of  the  year,  we  looked  down  upon  an  area  of  bare 
mud  and  gravel.  With  rocky  precipices  and  wooded 
slopes  forming  an  amphitheatre  around  its  upper  side,  the 
opening  outward  was  a  hundred  feet  in  width  ;  and  a  dam 
across  this  would  turn  our  eyesore  of  mud  into  a  beauti 
ful  little  lake.  It  must  be  done — and,  if  the  advice  of 
all  my  neighbors  was  to  be  trusted,  there  was  but  one 
"  team"  that  would  be  likely  to  make  a  "  good  job  "  of 
it.  A.  and  B.  (we  will  call  them  for  the  present)  had  a 
yoke  of  oxen  that  they  could  handle  like  a  knife  and  fork, 


THE      BARGAIN.  227 

and  drive  anywhere— snake  any  stone  into  any  place- 
could  lay  a  wall  like  a  slice  of  plum-cake — outwit  the 
frost-heave,  drift-ice,  and  flood-wood,  and  build  for  the 
least  money,  the  best  kind  of  no-you-don't  dam  for  a 
freshet.  The  two  men  took  jobs  together,  but  A.  was 
rather  the  "boss,"  and  with  him  I  must  make  my 
bargain. 

Acquainted  as  I  am  with  most  of  the  working-men 
hereabouts,  I  had  not  chanced  to  fall  in  with  these  parti 
cular  wall-layers  ;  but  I  found  them  at  work  on  a  farm 
near  the  village,  and,  with  some  persuasion,  engaged  them 
to  come  and  look  at  the  ground,  that  afternoon.  They 
came.  A.  understood  at  a  glance  what  I  had  been  six 
months  studying  up,  as  to  handiness  of  material,  risks  of 
flood,  time,  labor,  and  cost.  It  would  evidently  have  been 
a  waste  of  words  to  try  to  tell  him  anything  about  it. 
And,  as  he  sat  on  a  rock  and  whittled,  he  was  quite  too 
smart  looking  a  Yankee  to  have  any  chance  with  in  a 
bargain.  So  I  simply  proposed  that  he  should  do  it 
at  the  usual  price  of  labor  by  the  day — terms  cash,  com 
mence  on  Monday  morning,  and  finish  as  soon  as  conve 
nient.  To  this  entire  trust  of  the  matter  to  the  working- 
man's  own  honesty  and  industry,  there  is,  of  course,  no 
objection  ;  and,  leaving  A.  whittling  and  B.  stoning  squir 
rels,  I  turned  on  my  heel — enough  said,  as  I  supposed, 
but  wondering,  as  I  walked  up  the  glen,  why  my  own 


228  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE  WILD. 

prompt  readiness,  as  to  terms,  had  not  un-puckered  the 
purse-tight  lips  and  eyes  of  boss  A.  and  his  man  B. 

Monday  came — and  another  Monday — and  the  dam- 
builders  did  not  make  their  appearance.  Everybody  said, 
"  Oh,  you  have  got  to  go  after  them,  two  or  three  times, 
before  they'll  come  !"  but  not  understanding  fully  what 
this  meant,  I  waited  another  week.  Still,  no  beginning 
of  the  job — and  it  seemed  strange  that  I  did  not,  at 
least,  get  some  message  or  excuse,  as  they  knew  my  own 
men  were  on  the  ground  to  take  hold  and  work  under 
them,  and  there  was  a  certain  expense  to  me,  of  course, 
in  the  waiting  and  disappointment.  Every  day,  on  the 
way  to  the  post-office,  I  passed  my  delinquents  laying  up 
stone  in  a  neighbor's  field  ;  but  as  I  did  not  tie  my  horse 
and  get  over  the  fence  to  speak  with  them,  I,  of  course, 
had  neither  renewed  promise  nor  explanation.  Contrary 
to  the  advice  of  all  my  practical  friends,  I  gave  them  up, 
at  last,  and  undertook  the  building  of  the  dam  myself — 
with  the  aid  of  my  tenant  that  is  to  say,  who  is  handy  at 
anything,  and  the  three  or  four  Irishmen  in  my  regular 
employ.  We  built  it ;  and  the  neighbors  gave  us  a  laugh 
in  advance  at  the  way  the  first  freshet  would  walk  through 
it.  But  the  worst  one  remembered  in  fifty  years  has 
gone  over  it,  and  the  usual  half  dozen  more  ;  and  there 
it  stands,  to-day,  a  year  old,  and  apparently  as  good  as 
ever. 


THE      EXPLANATION.  229 

Now,  if  the  reader  fancies  that  what  I  have  told,  thus 
far,  is  a  very  plain  story  of  two  men  who  didn't  want  a 
job,  after  looking  at  it,  and  merely  broke  their  engage 
ment  as  a  bungling  way  of  letting  it  alone,  he  is  mistaken. 
They  knew  what  they  were  about,  and  it  was  of  some 
importance  to  them  to  get  the  job,  and  to  perform  it  well ; 
for,  with  a  newly  undertaken  property,  walls  to  lay,  em 
bankments  to  raise,  roads  to  grade,  and  woods  to  clear,  I 
was  the  best  customer  for  their  particular  work,  within 
twenty  miles.  And  they  were  not  men  who  could  afford 
to  lose  character,  either  for  'cuteness  or  honesty.  They 
have  houses,  family,  stock,  and  are  known  to  be  the 
smartest  men,  with  tools  and  oxen,  anywhere  about.  But 
there  was  the  pinch  !  I  was  to  be  made  to  understand 
and  feel  that  superiority.  They  were  not  going  to  let  me 
— a  new-comer  with  city-fied  notions — fancy  they  could  be 
hired  and  paid  off  like  Irish  laborers.  Oh  no  !  But  how 
to  enlighten  me  ?  The  price  of  labor  and  team,  by  the 
day,  they  could  not  very  well  alter.  Of  mere  money,  they 
could  ask  no  more  than  the  established  usage.  But 
they  could  insist  on  being  COAXED  to  earn  it.  I  could  be 
made  to  know  that  there  were  some  men  who  must  be 
talked  politely  to,  as  well  as  paid.  Did  I  suppose  that 
American  citizens,  like  them,  were  to  be  hired  with  two 
words,  like  Paddies,  and  paid  off  with  that  darned  silence 
that  no  man  ought  to  stand  ? 


230  LETTERS     FROM     IDLEWILD. 

I  am  defining,  not  condemning,  the  COAX-OCRACY,  let  me 
add.  Having  committed  no  manner  of  overt  offence 
against  boss  A.  and  his  man  B.,  I  am  grieved  that  they 
should  have  stopped  speaking  to  me  (as  they  have)  when 
we  meet  on  the  road,  and  that  my  Paddy-built  dam  is 
necessarily  a  disparagement  to  them,  while  it  continues  to 
hold  water.  Hang  the  money-only-dom,  say  I,  though 
my  dam  keeps  a  stiff  upper  lip  in  glorification  of  it,  for 
the  present.  I  am  willing  to  pay  tribute,  only  let  us  give 
a  look,  now  and  then,  to  see  whether  the  claim  is  exhor- 
bitant.  The  working-class  feels  that  it  has  the  power,  in 
this  country,  as  the  nobility  has  it  in  England.  But  there 
is  proper  deference,  and  there  is  toadyism,  to  England's 
ARISTOCRACY.  Let  us  talk  enough,  and  not  soft-sodder  too 
much,  to  America's  COAX-OCRACY. 


A      FINE     BOY.  231 


LETTER   XXXVI. 

Fine  Specimen  of  a  Boy — Young  America — Mr.  Roe's  Boys'  School — Surveying 
Class  in  the  Paths  of  the  Ravine,  &c.,  &c. 

December  3,  1853. 

COMING  home  on  a  smart  trot,  yesterday,  from  a  long 
ride  in  the  rain,  I  was  overtaken  by  one  of  my  bowing 
acquaintances,  a  young  gentleman  of  twelve  years  of  age 
whom  I  frequently  meet,  mounted  on  his  active  little 
pony.  As  he  galloped  gallantly  alongside,  and  com 
menced  conversation  with  the  politeness  and  self-posses 
sion  of  a  gentleman  of  forty,  I  could  not  help  admiring 
the  exponent  that  he  was,  of  the  age  that  is  coming  after 
us.  Cased  in  India-rubber  myself,  I  was,  of  course,  inde 
pendent  of  the  mud  and  rain  ;  but  he,  without  overcoat, 
and  with  only  his  gray  school-jacket  buttoned  tightly  to 
his  throat,  was  equally  thoughtless  of  the  dirty  water 
from  the  horses'  hoofs  and  the  clean  water  from  the 
clouds,  and  he  entered  into  the  discussion  of  the  relative 
merits  of  our  steeds,  with  a  glow  on  his  wet  face,  and  a 
mind  entirely  at  liberty.  In  the  two  or  three  miles  that 
we  rode  together,  he  accommodated  his  horse's  pace 


232  LETTERS      FROM      IDLEWILD. 

to  mine,  phrased  his  remarks  witli  entire  propriety  as  to 
our  respective  ages  and  the  fact  that  we  had  never  before 
exchanged  a  word,  and  gave  me,  altogether,  as  much 
pleasure  as  I  could  have  received  in  the  same  time  from 
any  grown-up  traveller  on  the  road.  Here  was  boyhood 
doing  well,  it  seemed  to  me.  In  health,  good  manners, 
and  proper  confidence  as  to  intercourse  with  those  older 
— three  important  points — Young  America  is  thus  doing 
better  than  it  used  to  do,  caricature  and  ridicule  on  the 
subject,  notwithstanding. 

I  have  been  indebted,  also,  to  some  fine  boys,  for  a 
picturesque  filling  up  of  the  foregrounds  of  my  landscape, 
recently — the  handsome  groups  of  a  surveying  class, 
from  the  school  of  my  neighbor,  Mr.  Roe.  Our  preci 
pitous  and  labyrinthine  ravine  of  Idlewild  is  the  best  of 
fields  for  the  practice  of  this  ouc-door  science  ;  and,  with 
their  tri-colored  flags  planted  on  the  crags  and  terraces, 
and  their  busy  movements  and  lively  voices,  these  healthy 
and  happy  lads  have  added  much  to  its  charm,  of  late. 
Youth  is  beautiful.  Its  friendship  is  precious.  The 
intercourse  with  it  is  a  purifying  release  from  the  worn 
and  stained  harness  of  older  life.  I  rejoice  that  Idlewild 
is  a  playground  to  which  the  lads  of  the  neighborhood 
can  be  agreeably  made  welcome — a  wilderness  of  wood- 
paths  and  waterfalls,  squirrels  and  chestnuts,  boundless 
shade  in  summer,  and  a  mile  or  more  of  dry  gravel-walks 


YOUTHFUL      SURVEYORS.  233 

in  winter — nothing  nice  enough  for  a  "  trespass,"  and 
nothing  too  cultivated  to  frolic  over.  But  I  must  show, 
by  the  way,  how  the  good-will  of  my  young  neighbors 
turns  to  account,  after  all.  They  have  enriched  me  with 
a  report  of  their  survey — telling  me  (what  I  should  have 
been  long  enough  in  finding  out,  with  all  the  serpentine 
twistings  of  the  roads  and  the  wildness  of  the  ravme  of 
two  hundred  feet  of  depth  lying  between)  the  distance, 
by  air-line,  between  my  gate  on  the  Hudson  and  the  gate 
toward  the  mountains  in  the  rear.  Thus  writes  the  able 
and  indefatigable  instructor  of  these  practical  surveyors 
of  from  ten  to  fifteen  years  of  age  : — 

*  *  "  The  distance  from  the  centre  of  the  one  gateway,  mid 
way  between  the  posts,  to  the  centre  ditto  of  the  other,  is  21,247 
feet  (128  rods,  and  a  fraction),  bearing  N.  12°,  43',  36",  E.  Any 
thing  further  that  we  can  do,  within  the  compass  of  chain  and 
theodolite,  that  would  promote  your  convenience  or  amusement, 
will  afford  me  much  pleasure,  and  my  boys  much  valuable  exer 
cise  and  practice.  If  they  can  make  their  work  close,  and  check 
lines  balance,  when  taken  across  your  ravines  and  among  your 
trees  (which  I  require  that  they  carefully  respect),  they  can  do  so 
anywhere  else.  With  your  permission  I  shall,  through  the  winter, 
give  them  other  exercises  in  the  ravine. 

"  Yours,  with  much  respect, 

"  ALFKED  Cox  ROE." 

I  have  copied  my  friend's  private  note  and  given  his 


234  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE  WILD. 

name  in  full,  without  his  permission,  but  it  is  partly  to 
answer  letters  frequently  addressed  to  me  for  informa 
tion.  The  descriptions  of  the  climate  and  scenery  of  the 
neighborhood,  and  the  occasional  allusion  to  schools, 
have  induced  parents  among  the  readers  of  the  Home, 
Journal  to  send  inquiries  which  this  name  and  our  fullest 
recommendation  of  the  discipline,  instruction,  and  man 
ners  of  the  school,  may  here  answer. 


INTERESTING     TO      INVALIDS.  235 


LETTER  XXXYIL 

Interesting  to  Invalids  only — Letter  from  an  Invalid  Clergyman — Reply — Keep 
ing  Disease  in  the  Minority— Climate  of  the  Tropics— Importance  of  Attention 
to  Trifles,  in  Convalescence,  &c.,  &c. 

December  10,  1853. 

ARE  you  quite  well,  dear  reader  ?  Are  all  those  who 
are  dear  to  you  quite  well  ?  If  so,  perhaps  you  will 
kindly  pass  on  to  another  topic,  allowing  me,  under  the 
Idlewild  caption,  for  this  week,  to  answer  a  letter  from 
an  invalid — the  information  thus  called  for  being  inte 
resting  to  invalids  only,  or  to  those  with  precious  invalids 
for  whom  they  feel  and  care.  In  a  world  where  mortals 
walk  beside  death  with  a  face  averted,  the  sick  can  talk 
safely  of  their  sorrows  only  to  the  sick.  I  do  not  claim, 
therefore,  the  attention  due  to  a  general  topic.  Though, 
with  pulmonary  consumption  for  our  country's  most 
fatal  liability,  any  experience,  in  eluding  or  defeating  it, 
may  be  of  interest  to  so  many,  as  to  be,  at  least,  excus 
ably  tedious  to  the  remainder.  It  comes  appropriately 
from  Idlewild.  The  Highlands  around  us,  I  fully  believe, 
are  the  nearest  spot  to  New  York,  where  the  acrid  irrita 
tion  of  our  eastern  and  seaboard  climate  is  unfelt.  Poke 


236  LETTERS      FROM     IDLEWILD. 

your  fire,  then,  dear,  delicate  reader  !  (for  you  are  an 
invalid,  by  your  following  me  thus  far) — and  settle  your 
self  comfortably  in  your  arm-chair,  while  I  lay  before  you 
a  sad  and  well-written  letter  from  an  invalid  : — 

(7*****,  November  21,  1853. 

"  MR.  WILLIS. — Dear  Sir  : — You  will  perhaps  think  it  pre 
sumption  in  me,  an  entire  stranger,  to  address  yon  as  I  now  do  ; 
but  I  shall  be  willing  to  abide  your  judgment  after  you  have 
heard  my  story.  I  am  a  Presbyterian  clergyman,  in  feeble 
health.  After  five  years'  preaching  in  one  happy  parish,  my  lungs 
gave  out,  and  I  was  obliged  to  give  up  my  calling.  By  the 
advice  of  physicians,  here  and  in  New  York.  I  spent  two  winters 
at  the  South,  roaming  from  place  to  place,  but  spending  most  of 
the  time  in  Jacksonville  and  St.  Augustine,  Florida.  I  was  there 
during  the  winter  of  your  tour  in  that  region,  and  on  the  same 
sad  errand.  And  I  may  here  say,  that  I  have  taken  great  pleasure 
in  reading,  weekly,  your  record  of  travel  in  those  parts. 

"  But  I  got  no  essential  benefit  from  the  '  Sunny  South ' — 
nothing  but  some  disgust  for  it,  weariness  of  travel,  and  a  warmer 
love  for  the  North  and  for  my  home.  Neglecting  further  medical 
advice,  I  bought,  two  years  since,  a  pleasant  site  for  a  country 
residence  in  this,  my  native  place,  built  a  house,  and  devoted 
myself  to  tree-planting  and  gardening  of  all  sorts.  This  has  been 
my  sole  employment  for  two  summers.  In  winter,  I  warm  my 
whole  house,  moderately,  not  allowing  the  mercury  to  rise  above 
sixty  or  sixty-two  degrees,  and  connect  with  this  a  thorough  ven 
tilation.  I  remain  within  doors  most  of  the  time.  Between  romp 
ing  with  my  two  children,  playing  with  grace -sticks,  battledoor, 
etc.,  fighting  imaginary  foes  with  my  cane,  and  the  music  of  a 


THE      INVALID      CLERGYMAN.  231 

piano,  I  manage  to  get  regular,  daily  exercise  and  recreation.  In 
favorable  weather,  I  also  take  a  brisk  walk  of  half  a  mile. 

"  This  mode  of  life  makes  me  quite  happy,  and  I  enjoy  a  toler 
able  degree  of  health  5  but  /  don't  get  well.  I  followed  you  to 
Idlewild  with  much  interest,  having  a  fellow-feeling  on  one  point, 
at  least,  and  watched  to  see  whether  you  would  get  the  mastery  of 
disease.  In  your  last  letter,  you  say  that  you  are  no  longer  to  be 
classed  among  the  consumptives.  Alas  !  I  can't  say  as  much  for 
myself,  I  fear.  And  on  reading  your  lines,  I  resolved  to  write  to 
you,  as  a  once  fellow-invalid,  and  ask,  What  has  cured  you  ? 
The  doctors  advis-e  me  to  go  South  and  take  cod-liver  oil,  but 
their  prescriptions  do  me  no  good  ;  and  I  improve  most  when  fol 
lowing  my  own  judgment.  I  spade  and  hoe  and  rake  quite 
lustily,  and  ride  horseback,  in  summer  ;  I  cough  but  little,  and  eat 
and  sleep  as  well  as  ever — but  cannot  use  my  lungs.  Now,  may 
I  trouble  you  to  give  me  some  plain  advice — a  little  of  your  own 
daily  regimen— if  you  are  willing  to  do  so,  an  account  of  what  has 
helped  you  ? 

•'•'  I  consult  you,  not  as  a  doctor,  but  a  man  of  benevolence, 
knowing  by  experience  the  feelings  of  a  young  man  arrested  by 
disease,  and  laid  aside  from  the  activities  of  life. 

"  If  you  do  not  think  proper,  nor  find  it  convenient,  to  address 
me  personally,  I  beg  leave  to  suggest  that  you  give  your  friends, 
through  the  Home  Journal,  some  of  your  views  and  your  expe 
rience  relating  to  the  treatment  of  pulmonary  affections.  A  large 
and  eagerly  attentive  audience  would  listen  to  your  words,  I 
assure  you. 

"  Pardon  me,  sir,  if  I  have  annoyed  you  by  this  letter ;  and  if 
you  are  willing  to  do  so,  please  allow  me  to  hear  from  you,  and 
greatly  oblige,  yours,  with  true  respect,  A.  D.  G." 


238  LETTERS      FROM      IDLEWILD. 

[To  which  straightforward  and  touching  letter,  the  fol 
lowing  was  the  bulk  of  rny  reply — not  very  satisfactory,  I 
fear,  though  possibly  there  may  be  a  point  or  so,  in  which 
it  is  either  suggestive  or  corroborative  :] — 

*  *  The  politicians  teach  us  how  to  treat  a  disease, 
I  think.  They  do  not  try  to  convert  the  opposing  party. 
They  are  content  if  they  can  keep  it  in  the  minority — sure 
that  it  will  tire,  in  time,  of  its  want  of  power,  change 
sides,  or  disappear.  The  patient  who  troubles  himself 
least  about  his  disease  (or  leaves  it  entirely  to  his  doctor), 
but  who  perseveringly  outvotes  it  by  the  high  condition  of 
the  other  parts  of  his  system,  is  the  likeliest  to  recover — 
and  it  is  of  this  high  condition,  alone,  that  I  have  anything 
to  say.  Of  twenty  who  may  be  sleepless  with  a  cough  and 
weakened  with  the  raising  of  blood,  no  two,  perhaps,  are 
subjects  for  precisely  the  same  medical  treatment,  or 
diseased  in  precisely  the  same  locality — though  all  are  called 
"  consumptives."  Our  friends,  the  physicians,  are  better 
geographers  than  we,  as  to  where  the  healing  is  wanted— 
though  they  strangely  confine  themselves  to  the  specific 
ailment,  taking  it  for  granted  that  the  patient  keeps  the 
rest  of  his  body  in  proper  training  for  recovery.  It  is  medi 
cal  etiquette,  I  believe,  to  refrain  from  any  very  particu 
lar  inquiry  into  this.  But,  few  sick  men  are  wise  or  firni- 
minded  enough  to  be  safely  trusted  with  their  own  general 
condition;  and  I,  for  one,  came  very  near  dying — 


THE      TROPICS.  239 

not  of  my  disease,  but  of  what   my   doctors   took  for 
granted. 

To  leave  generalities,  however,  and  come  to  the  per 
sonal  experience  which  you  ask  for  : 

I  went  to  the  Tropics,  as  a  last  hope  to  cure  a  chronic 
cough  and  blood-raising,  which  had  brought  me  to  the 
borders  of  the  grave.  I  found  a  climate  in  which  it  is 
hard  to  be  unhappy  about  anything — charming  to  live  at 
all— easy  to  die.  (At  least,  those  who  were  sure  of 
dying,  and  did  die — and  in  whose  inseparable  company 
I  thought  I  was — were  social  and  joyous  to  the  last.) 
The  atmosphere  of  that  Eden-latitude,  however,  is  but  a 
pain-stilling  opiate,  while  the  equator  might  be  called  a 
kitchen-range  for  a  Sardanapalus,  and  the  Antilles  are 
but  tables  loaded  with  luxuries.  The  Carribbean  Sea  is 
the  Kingdom  of  the  Present  Moment.  The  Past  and  the 
Future  are  its  Arctic  and  Antarctic — unthought  of 
except  by  desperate  explorers.  Hither  are  sent  inva 
lids,  with  weakened  resolution,  to  make  a  pilgrimage 
with  prescription  and  prudence !  You  may  see  by 
the  book  I  have  just  published  ("  Health-Trip  to  the 
Tropics"),  with  what  complete  forgetfulness  of  care  or 
caution  I  made  one  of  an  invalid  company  for 
months.  Was  anybody  going  to  be  shut  up  in  a  bed 
room  with  such  nights  out  of  doors?  Was  anybody 
going  to  be  dull  and  abstinent  with  such  merry  people 


240  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE  WILD. 

and   a   French    breakfast    or   tempting   dinner    on   the 
table  ? 

I  reached  home  in  July,  thoroughly  prostrated,  and,  in 
the  opinion  of  one  or  two  physicians,  a  hopeless  case. 
Coughing  almost  the  whole  of  every  night,  and  raising 
blood  as  fast  as  my  system  could  make  it,  I  had  no  rest 
and  no  strength.  I  lingered  through  the  summer,  and, 
as  the  autumn  came  on,  and  the  winter  was  to  be  faced, 
I  sat  down  and  took  a  fair  look  at  the  probabilities. 
With  the  details  of  this  troubled  council  of  war,  I  will 
not  detain  you  ;  but,  after  an  unflinching  self-examina 
tion,  I  came  to  the  conclusion  that  I  was  myself  the  care 
less  and  indolent  neutralizer  of  the  medicines  which  had 
failed  to  cure  me— that  one  wrong  morsel  of  food  or  one 
day's  partially  neglected  exercise  might  put  back  a  week's 
healing and  that,  by  slight  omissions  of  attention,  occa 
sional  breaking  of  regimen,  and  much  too  effeminate 
habits,  I  was  untrue  to  the  trust  which  Gray,  my  friend 
and  physician,  had  made  the  ground  of  his  prescriptions. 
And,  to  a  minutely  persevering  change  in  these  compara 
tive  trifles,  I  owe,  I  believe,  my  restoration  to  health. 
There  was  not  a  day  of  the  succeeding  winter,  however 
cold  or  wet,  in  which  I  did  not  ride  eight  or  ten  miles  on 
horseback.  With  five  or  six  men,  I  was,  for  most  of  the 
remaining  hours  of  the  day,  out  of  doors,  laboring  at  the 
roads  and  clearings  of  my  present  home.  The  cottage  of 


AIR    AND     EXERCISE    THE    BEST   MEDICINE.    241 

Idle  wild  was  then  unbuilt,  and  the  neighboring  farm 
house,  where  we  boarded,  was,  of  course,  indifferently 
warmed ;  but,  by  suffering  no  state  of  the  thermometer 
to  interrupt  the  morning  cold  bath,  and  the  previous  fric 
tion  with  flesh-brushes,  which  makes  the  water  as  agree 
able  as  in  summer,  I  soon  became  comparatively  inde 
pendent  of  the  temperature  in  doors,  as  my  horse  and 
axe  made  me  independent  of  it  when  out  of  doors.  With 
proper  clothing  to  resist  cold  or  wet,  I  found  (to  my  sur 
prise)  that  there  was  no  such  thing  as  disagreeable 
weather  to  be  felt  in  the  saddle  ;  and,  when  a  drive  in  a 
wagon  or  carriage  would  have  intolerably  irritated  my 
cough,  I  could  be  all  day  in  the  woods  with  an  axe,  my 
lungs  as  quiet  as  a  child's. 

With  all  this — and  looking  like  the  ruddiest  specimen 
of  health  in  the  country  around  about — I  am  still  fyou 
will  be  comforted  to  hearj  troubled  occasionally  with  my 
sleep-robber  of  a  cough  ;  and,  in  Boston,  the  other  day, 
on  breathing  that  essence  of  pepper  and  icicles  which 
they  call  there  "  East  Wind/'  I  was  seized  with  the  old 
hemorrhage  of  the  lungs  and  bled  myself  weak  again. 
But  I  rallied  immediately  on  returning  to  this  Highland 
air,  and  am  well  once  more — as  well,  that  is  to  say,  as  is 
consistent  with  desirable  nervous  susceptibility.  The  kiss 
of  the  delicious  South  Wind  of  to-day  (November  30), 
would  be  half  lost  upon  the  cheek  of  perfect  health. 

11 


LETTERS      FROM      IDLE WILD. 

I  fear  I  cannot  sufficiently  convey  to  you  my  sense  of 
the  importance  of  a  horse,  to  an  invalid.  In  my  well- 
weighed  opinion,  ten  miles  a  day  in  the  saddle  would  cure 
more  desperate  cases  (particularly  of  consumption),  than 
all  the  changes  of  climate  and  all  the  medicines  in  the 
world.  It  is  vigorous  exercise  without  fatigue.  The 
peculiar  motion  effectually  prevents  all  irritation  of 
cold  air  to  the  lungs,  on  the  wintriest  day.  The  torpid 
liver  and  other  internal  organs  are  more  shaken  up  and 
vivified  by  the  trot  of  a  mile  than  by  a  week  of  feeble 
walking.  The  horse  (and  you  should  own  and  love  him) 
is  company  enough,  and  not  too  much.  Your  spirits  are 
irresistibly  enlivened  by  the  change  of  movement  and  the 
control  of  the  animal.  Your  sense  of  strength  and 
activity  ( in  which  lies  half  the  self-confidence  as  to  get 
ting  well,  which  the  Doctors  think  so  important)  is  plus 
one  horse,  with  the  difference  from  walking.  As  to 
pulling  upon  the  forces  of  the  spine  and  consequently 
upon  the  brain,  it  is  recommended  by  the  best  English 
physicians  as  much  the  preferable  exercise  for  men  of 
intellectual  pursuits.  And,  last  (I  think,  not  least),  the 
lungs  of  both  body  and  soul  are  expanded  by  the  daily 
consciousness  of  inhabiting  a  large  space — by  having  an 
eagle's  range  rather  than  a  snail's — by  living  a  life  which 
occupies  ten  miles  square  of  the  earth's  surface,  rather 
than  that  "  half  mile"  which  you  speak  of  as  the  extent 


HEALTH      CONSIDERATIONS.  243 

of  your  daily  walk.  The  cost  is  trifling.  At  this  particu 
lar  season,  when  torses  are  beginning,  as  they  say  at  the 
livery  stables,  to  "  eat  their  heads  off,"  you  may  buy  the 
best  you  can  want  for  fifty  dollars,  and  his  feed  costs 
thirty  cents  a  day.  As  the  horse  and  the  Doctor  arc 
seldom  necessities  of  one  and  the  same  man,  you  may 
rather  find  it  an  economy — apothecary  and  all. 

In  that  "  majority  "  I  have  spoken  of  above,  there  are 
(as  in  all  majorities),  some  voters  of  not  much  consequence 
individually,  but  still  worth  keeping  an  eye  upon.  Briefly 
to  name  one  or  two  :— There  are  so  few  invalids  who 
are  invariably  and  conscientiously  untemptable  by  those 
deadly  domestic  enemies,  sweetmeats,  pastry  and  gravies, 
that  the  usual  civilities  at  a  meal,  are  very  like  being 
politely  assisted  to  the  grave.  The  care  and  nurture  of 
the  skin  is  a  matter  worth  some  study  ;  for  it  is  capa 
ble  not  only  of  being  negatively  healthy,  but  positively 
luxurious  in  its  action  and  sensations — as  every  well- 
groomed  horse  knows  better  than  most  men.  The  Amer 
ican  liver  has  a  hard  struggle  against  the  greasy  cookery 
of  our  happy  country.  The  impoverished  blood  of  the 
invalid  sometimes  requires  that  "  glass  of  wine  for  the 
stomach's  sake  "  recommended  by  the  Apostle.  Just  sleep 
enough  and  just  clothing  enough,  are  important  adjust 
ments,  requiring  more  thought  and  care  than  are  usually 
given  to  them.  For  a  little  philosophy  in  your  habitual 


244  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE  WILD. 

posture  as  you  sit  in  your  chair,  your  lungs  would  be  very 
much  obliged  to  you.  An  analysis  of  the  air  we  live  and 
sleep  in  would  be  well  worth  looking  into  occasionally. 
And  there  are  two  things  that  turn  sour  in  a  man, 
without  constant  and  sufficient  occupation  upon  something 
besides  the  domestic  circle — the  temper  and  the  ambition. 

Thus  much,  of  my  reply  to  our  clerical  fellow-sufferer 
may  interest  you,  dear  invalid  reader.  Of  the  medicine 
of  "Out  doors  at  Idle  wild" — the  mingled  salubrity  of 
the  climate  of  mountain  and  river  around  us — I  should 
have  said  more  to  one  un-anchored  in  a  home  and  .a 
parish.  From  one  who  writes  so  frankly  and  sensibly 
as  he,  we  must  hope  to  hear  again,  however,  and  with 
another  opportunity,  I  may  again  ask  for  invalid  indul 
gence,  and  return  to  the  theme. 


A      SUMMER      SMILE.  245 


LETTER  XXXVIII. 

Summer  in  December— Flippertigibbet— Idleness— Annual  Quarrelsomeness  of 
Dogs — pig-influence — Home  without  a  Hog,  &c.,  &c. 

December  17,  1853. 

How  sweet  is  this  unexpected  smile  from  the  Summer 
that  we  thought  had  forgotten  us  1  December,  coming  in, 
was  more  like  August  looking  back  over  her  shoulder. 
The  pines  (with  their  charming  way  of  growing  more 
fragrant,  the  more  warmly  they  are  loved  by  the  sun)  are 
as  June-like  in  their  breathings  as  in  their  looks.  No  ! 
Summer  itself  was  not  more  out-doors-y  than  these  first 
five  days  of  winter.  And  we  are  so  helped  in  the  enjoy 
ment  of  these  delightful  irregularities  of  Nature,  by  the 
evergreen  woods  which  make  the  leaf-fall  scarce  notice 
able  at  Idlewild.  My  children  are  playing  under  the 
hemlocks.  Flat  on  the  fir-tassels  in  the  shed,  lies  their 
companion,  Flippertigibbet,  a  smooth-haired  terrier,  who, 
on  some  days  of  September,  looked  for  the  sunniest  corner 
of  the  portico  ;  the  birds  are  about ;  wasps  and  flies 
active  and  plenty  ;  my  mare  quite  in  a  foam  as  she 


246        LETTERS   FROM   IDLE  WILD. 

stands  at  the  stable  door,  just  unsaddled  after  an  easy 
gallop  home  from  the  hills.  One  would  not  tire  of  such  a 
day  as  this,  to  be  alone  with  it  from  morning  till  night  ; 
though  there  are  few  days,  as  there  are  few  people,  that 
one  does  not  see  too  much  of,  without  intervals  of  books 
or  occupation.  Blessed  is  idleness — for  to-day  ! 

*  *  *  *  *  * 

In  my  daily  rides,  of  late,  I  had  thought  my  neighbors' 
dogs  rather  more  filibusterous  than  usual,  and  was  won 
dering  whether  it  was  owing  to  the  frost-sieve  which  I 
was  allowing  kind  Dame  Nature  to  spread  protectingly 
over  my  upper  lip,  when  a  friend  gave  me  the  key  to 
their  excitability.  This  is  the  hog-killing  season  ;  and  it 
appears,  that  with  the  scent  of  blood  in  the  air,  the  far 
mers'  dogs  become  annually  furious.  They  bark  at  all 
comers,  even  those  with  whom  they  are  well  acquainted, 
and,  in  their  assaults  upon  the  passers-by,  they  quite  for 
get  their  usual  polite  distinction  between  beggars  and 
gentlemen.  Pig  influence,  even  after  death,  is  thus  hos 
tile  to  good  manners.  One  cannot  "kill  his  own  pork," 
and  have  also  a  well-behaved  dog.  And  I  must  own 
that  I  am  pleased  with  discovering  a  new  reproach  to 
the  animal — for  it  is  one  of  the  obstinacies  about  which  I 
am  most  reasoned  with,  by  my  household  advisers,  that  I 
cannot  consent  to  keep  a  pig.  "  There's  an  unrighteous 
amount  of  swill  wasted,"  as  my  man  eloquently  expresses 


ANTI-PIG. 


himself—  twenty  dollars  a  year  in  good  sweet  pork  that 
you  know  all  about."  But,  satisfactory  as  it  may  be  to 
eat  pork  with  which  one  has  been  previously  acquainted 
in  the  shape  of  swill,  my  abhorrence  outweighs  both  the 
economy  and  the  pleasure.  If  it  were  nothing  else,  the 
voice  of  the  brute  is  doom  enough  for  him.  ("  Oft  in  the 
stilly  night,"  etc.)  And  as  one  must  remember,  daily, 
every  creature  of  which  one  is  bound,  as  the  master  of  a 
home,  to  be  mercifully  mindful,  I  will  have  a  home  with 
out  a  pig—  if  my  own  taste  and  my  dog's  better  manners 
are  arguments  that  continue  to  prevail. 


248  LETTERS     FROM     IDLEWILD. 


LETTER  XXXIX. 

Visit  to  Seven  Lakes  and  Natural  Bridge — Torrey  the  Blacksmith — Sunday 
in  Nature— My  Companion's  Hobby— Hollett  the  Quaker— Morning  Sensa 
tions— Jonny  Kronk'a  and  its  Cemetery— Mammoth  Snapping-Turtle— Iron 
Mine,  &c.,  <fec. 

December  12, 1853* 

WITH  my  friend  Torrey,  the  village  blacksmith,  I  made, 
yesterday  (December  llth),  a  mountain  pilgrimage  of 
twenty-five  labyrinthian  miles — first,  to  stand  on  one  of 
the  peaks  of  our  tangled  Alps,  from  which  seven  lakes  are 
visible  ;  second,  to  visit  a  remarkable  natural  bridge, 
under  which  rushes  the  torrent  which  fills  one  of  these- 
Alpine  lakes  ;  and,  third,  to  pass  the  Sabbath  (properly 
and  reverently,  I  felt)  in  God's  open  temple,  the  sky-ceil 
ing  of  which  was  supported  around  us  by  clusters  of 
mountain-tops,  while  the  floor  and  area  were  filled,  for 
this  day,  with  a  glow  of  autumnal  light  so  breathless,  and 
so  fragrantly,  and  warmly  luminous,  that  it  seemed  like 
Nature's  own  higher  worship — a  service  in  the  outer 
dome  superseding,  or  uniting,  around  one  grand  altar,  the 
devotional  light  and  incense  of  the  lesser  chapels  of  man's 
building.  If  I  do  not  record  the  more  hallowed  observ- 


THE     SMITH     AND     HIS     SMITHY.  249 

ance,  amid  the  details  of  the  day's  history — where  it  was, 
that  the  heart  knelt  and  the  prayer  arose,  where  was 
heard  the  anthem,  and  where  shone  the  face  of  God — it 
is  not  that  the  day  was  unblest  with  these  breaks  in  the 
passing  of  its  hours.  It  would  be  hard  to  be  wholly 
undevout  among  mountains  that  seem  standing  hushed  in 
the  presence  of  their  Maker.  Yet  the  cattle  graze  and 
the  brooks  run,  and  we  count  the  herd,  and  see  the 
sparkle  of  the  water,  with  the  awe  at  the  heart  uninter 
rupted. 

The  day's  interest  for  my  fellow-horseman  and  myself 
was  not  precisely  the  same,  though  he  was,  very  likely, 
the  greater  enthusiast  of  the  two.  His  mania,  as  he 
hammers  away  at  his  anvil  in  the  village,  is  to  discourse 
to  his  customers  of  the  treasures  of  ore  and  minerals  in  the 
mountains  near  by  ;  but  it  was  by  one  or  two  of  his  little 
side-mentions  of  what  was  to  be  seen  in  these  same  wild 
fastnesses,  that  my  curiosity  had  become  more  especially 
enamored.  It  was  a  week  ago  that  he  was  sharpening 
my  mare's  shoes  for  the  coming  frosts — his  bright  little 
smutty-nosed  child,  of  three  years  of  age,  mounted  on  the 
ash-heap  of  the  forge,  and  admiring  the  intermittent  blast 
of  her  father's  big  bellows  on  the  fire,  and  myself  seated 
on  the  joist  of  his  ox-frame,  and  admiring  the  equally 
mysterious  blasts  of  his  learned  eloquence  upon  hematites 
and  pyrites — when  I  proposed  to  him  that  he  should 
11* 


250  LETTERS      FROM      IDLEWILD. 

mount  my  other  bay  mare,  if  the  next  Sunday  should 
chance  to  be  pleasant,  and  go  and  show  me  the  great  iron 
mine  he  talked  of,  where  General  Washington  got  the  ore 
for  the  chain  of  the  chevaux-de-frise  across  the  Hudson. 
Not  that  I  cared  much  to  see  the  red  earth  and  the  holes 
in  the  ground,  though  the  mine  is  still  worked ;  but,  in 
the  circuit  to  reach  this  locality  (called  the  Forest  of 
Dean),  we  should  follow  a  pass  through  a  cluster  of 
mountain-tops,  where  the  ponds  were  like  milk-pans  on 
different  shelves — a  score  of  lifted-up  lakes  one  above 
another,  two  to  five  miles  in  circumference,  and  scarce  a 
mile  of  distance  between  them,  full  of  fish,  and  fed  by 
unfailing  springs  of  bright  clear  water,  though  at  an 
elevation  of  two  or  three  thousand  feet  above  the  Hud 
son.  These  thunder-shower  tanks,  so  beautifully  shelved 
among  the  clouds,  I  wanted  to  see.  Torrey's  friend, 
Hollett,  a  Quaker  woodsman,  whose  oxen  he  sometimes 
shod,  lived  under  one  of  the  mountains,  from  the  top  of 
which  you  could  see  seven  of  them.  And  Hollett  was  an 
intelligent  man,  who  had  quite  a  collection  of  the  mine 
rals  he  had  gathered  round  about,  nicely  arranged  in  his 
farm-house  entry.  And  just  below  his  house  was  the 
wonderful  natural  bridge,  through  the  dark  cavern  of 
which  passed  the  foaming  outlet  creek,  which  led  the 
water  into  Popolo  Pond  from  the  pond  above.  It  would 
be  the  full  of  the  moon,  and,  by  starting  at  sunrise,  if  the 


A     LOVELY      SABBATH.  251 

weather  should  be  fine,  we  might  visit  the  mines  and  all 
the  rest  of  it,  and  get  back  somewhere  in  the  early  hours 
of  the  moonlight.  I  quite  felt  the  sparks  fly  from  my 
own  anticipations,  when  my  friend's  hammer  came  down 
on  the  red-hot  shoe,  with  his  promise  to  go. 

Probably  even  the  city  reader  remembers  with  what 
almost  summer  softness  and  loveliness  this  Sunday  came. 
The  weather  chronicle  of  the  Tribune  (December  12th), 
says  of  it  : — "  Yesterday  was  one  of  the  most  delightful 
winter  Sundays  New- York  has  ever  enjoyed,  the  day 
without  a  cloud,  and  the  sun  in  all  the  glory  of  June." 
As  I  opened  my  door  with  eagerly  expanding  lungs  in 
the  early  morning,  I  could  not  help  rejoicing  in  the 
procession  which  I  seemed  to  be  letting  in — first,  my 
friend  Torrey,  with  his  long  surtout  and  his  broad- 
rimmed  hat ;  behind  him  the  magnificent  hemlock  and 
cedar  which  shade  my  threshold  ;  straight  behind  these, 
the  lofty  brow  of  the  towering  Storm-King  ;  and  the 
radiated  head  of  the  god  of  day  goldenly  and  gloriously 
bringing  up  the  rear — each  seen  over  the  other's  shoulder, 
and  the  blacksmith,  with  his  fine  intellect  and  immortal 
spirit,  the  fitting  leader  of  the  Five.  And,  by  the  way, 
I  shall  not  fairly  have  introduced  my  friend  to  the  reader, 
without  mentioning  that  his  tall  spare  frame  is  sur 
mounted  with  a  head  that  would  be  a  sculptor's  ideal  of 
a  Cicero — features  classically  correct,  and  the  bald  front 


252  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE WILD. 

senatorially  ample  in  its  lift  and  development.  Even 
through  the  red  shirt  and  the  soot  of  the  shop,  any 
observing  traveller,  chancing  in,  to  have  a  shoe  set  to  his 
horse,  would  feel  the  dignity  of  mind  un-pedestalled.  So 
have  small  neighborhoods  their  private  Cicero  some 
times  ! — and,  to  do  our  village  justice,  I  think  we  value 
ours  at  the  forge,  as  much  as  Rome  hers  at  the  Forum. 
We  had  reached  the  brow  of  the  mountain-range 
immediately  overhanging  our  village,  when  the  sun  was  a 
little  more  than  an  hour  high  ;  and,  after  a  few  minutes7 
halt  to  breathe  our  horses  and  take  a  parting  look  at  the 
glorious  Highland  vase  of  the  Hudson  (to  which  New- 
burg  and  Fishkill  looked  like  the  glittering  handles),  we 
turned  towards  our  State's  great  warehouse  of  mountains 
to  spare,  the  twenty-mile  wilderness  of  peaks  between  the 
Hudson  and  the  Ramapo.  Our  first  descent  along  the 
Southern  ribs  of  the  Storm-King  (after  thus  climbing 
over  his  majesty's  spine),  follows,  for  a  little  way,  the 
stream  which  ends  in  the  picturesque  water-slide  below 
Cozzens's,  so  familiar  to  the  summer  travellers  on  the 
river;  but,  curving  short  to  the  right  at  " Johnny 
Kronk's,"  we  turned  our  backs  upon  West  Point,  and 
pursued  the  loveliest  of  valleys  along  the  western  shore 
of  Long  Pond — water  and  woods  entrancingiy  asleep, 
and  the  sunshine  full  of  Sabbath  balminess  and  beauty. 
How  lovely  this  "weather"  for  everybody  may  be! 


A     MOUNTAIN      CEMETERY.  253 

It  is  all  "weather" — as  it  is  all  "words  from  the 
dictionary" — yet  some  words  and  some  weather  are  in 
poems. 

But  (to  retrace  a  step)  I  did  not  pass  "  Johnny 
Kronk's,"  without  preaching  a  little  sermon  at  the 
proiniscuousness  of  a  cow-yard  and  grave-yard  all  in  one 
— a  score  of  marble  tombstones  standing  in  the  enclosure 
of  the  back  of  the  house,  and  the  cows  and  pigs  rubbing 
their  itching  skins  against  the  unresisting  epitaphs  ! 
Kronk  is  dead,  and  buried  here,  himself ;  but,  in  his  life 
time  his  house,  now  occupied  by  a  tenant,  was  the  moun 
tain  centre  of  neighborhood  as  a  tavern,  and  its  back-yard 
(oddly  enough,  where  there  is  so  much  spare  room)  is 
the  mountain  cemetery.  His  children  may  throw  slops 
from  the  kitchen  window  upon  the  old  man's  breast ;  and 
his  friends  lie  around  him, — as  comfortable,  perhaps, 
under  potato-peelings  and  broken  crockery,  for  the 
present,  as  other  people  under  the  sod  ;  but,  they  are  to 
"  rise  from  the  dead,"  and  should  lie,  at  least,  in  a  clean 
place.  Amen. 

Long  Pond  meadow,  which  we  followed,  after  turning 
at  Johnny  Krouk's,  is  a  kind  of  entresol — a  half-story 
valley,  between  the  lower  story  of  the  West  Point  level 
and  the  upper  stories  of  the  mountains  beyond.  It  is 
famous  (the  Pond)  for  one  remarkable  entresol  lodger, 
the  only  one  of  his  kind  in  the  country  about,  and  an 


254  LETTERS      FROM      IDLEWILD. 

object  of  terror  to  the  swimmers  and  fishermen — a  mam 
moth  snapping-turlle,  whose  head,  by  the  general  consent 
of  all  who  have  seen  him,  is  "as  large  as  your  double- 
fist."  He  gives  somebody  a  start,  about  twice  or  three 
times  a  year  ;  but,  as  the  pond  is  two  miles  long,  and  its 
abundance  of  perch  and  pickerel  may  be  caught  off  any 
rock  or  log,  he  is  not  fallen  in  with,  for  the  rest  of  the 
time,  and  probably  gains,  in  mystery  and  dignity,  by  the 
unfamiliar  seclusion.  How  he  came  here,  no  one  knows. 
Weir  the  artist,  who  lives  only  five  or  six  miles  off, 
should  come  up  and  paint  his  portrait,  if  only  for  the 
probability  that  it  is  the  metempsychose  of  some  political 
party  out  of  power.  "The  snapping-turtle "  (says 
Natural  History)  "is  very  tenacious  of  life,  and  will 
move,  weeks  after  being  deprived  of  the  head  ;  and  this 
last  will  continue  to  bite,  long  after  it  is  severed  from  the 
body."  Come,  Weir  !  Should  not  the  portrait  of  this 
typical  patriarch  of  the  "Outs"  and  the  way  they  act,  be 
painted  and  hung  up  at  Washington  ? 

Our  route  along  the  Pond,  lay  between  two  ranges  of 
hills  ;  and,  as  all  American  mountains  range  from  North 
to  South,  while  all  European  mountains  range  from  East 
to  West,  we  duly  felt  the  republican  groove  that  we  were 
following  in  the  southerly  course  of  the  valley.  The 
earth  soon  began  to  be  reddish  in  spots,  and  my  enthusi 
astic  friend  grew  eloquent  in  pointing  out  the  dips  of  the 


A      MINE      AND      A      MORAL.  255 

strata  of  rock,  and  the  mineral  indications  of  the  iron 
mines  we  were  approaching.  Somewhere  about  eleven 
o'clock  we  tied  our  horses  to  the  cedar-trees  of  the 
unfenced  wild,  and  I  followed  the  scientific  blacksmith 
into  the  caves,  and  around  among  the  pick-axes  and  wind 
lasses,  blasting-tools  and  Irishmen,  all  idle  with  Sunday 
and  sunshine.  I  was  interested  in  the  spot  historically. 
The  sloops  that  anchor  off  Idlewild  bring  up  occasionally 
a  link  of  the  big  chain  of  the  chevaux-de-frise  thrown 
across  the  Hudson  in  revolutionary  times,  for  which  this 
mine  furnished  the  ore  ;  though,  if  Washington  and 
Putnam  had  been  as  sharp  geologists  as  my  friend,  they 
would  have  found  the  ore  close  by  the  forge  on  the 
Moodiia,  where  it  was  worked,  in  a  mine  now  yielding 
plentifully — saving  thus  the  long  track  of  horseback- 
transportation  over  the  mountains.  So  we  travel  far, 
sometimes,  for  the  ore  of  happiness  that  we  might  have 
found  nearer  home — a  moral,  I  think,  we  may  venture 
upon,  with  less  risk  of  irrelevancy,  in  the  story  of  a 
Sabbath  day. 


256  LETTERS      FROM      IDLEWII.  D. 


LETTER    XL. 

Many-Lake  Alps  and  their  Woodsmen— Highland  Life— Contrast  between  it  and 
New  York,  only  three  Hours'  Distance— The  Difficulty— Natural  Bridge- 
Driven  on  the  Rocks— Hollett's  House,  and  our  Ascent  to  the  Peak— Seven 
Lakes— Quaker  and  Panther  Meeting  in  the  Woods,  &c.,  &c. 

December  31,  1853. 
[DESCRIPTION  CONTINUED  FROM  LAST  LETTER.] 

THE  inhabitants  of  these  Many-Lake  Alps  are  princi 
pally  woodsmen.  They  farm  but  little,  even  where  they 
have  strips  of  meadow  on  the  water-courses  which 
traverse  their  land.  With  the  state  of  their  mountain- 
roads,  they  prefer  crops  to  which  customers  help  them 
selves,  or  which  can  both  grow  and  find  legs  to  walk  to 
market — cattle  to  graze,  sheep  to  browse,  and  colts  to 
board  (at  pasture),  for  a  dollar  a  month.  It  is  not 
uncommon  to  let  horses  run  wild  through  the  winter, 
and  they  thrive  very  well  upon  the  mosses  of  the  rocks 
and  the  bark  of  the  sapling  elms.  The  sapling  hickories, 
from  being  so  saleable  as  hoop-poles,  are  jocularly  called 
"  the  mountain-wheat.'7  Perhaps  the  stranger  is  most 
astonished  at  the  tracks  over  which  these  people  drive 
their  teams,  with  a  cord  of  wood  at  a  load.  A  rock  of 


MOUNTAIN      LIFE.  25T 

the  size  of  a  nail-keg  or  a  flour-barrel  is  no  obstruction 
to  a  wheel.  The  wagons  are  so  put  together  as  to  work 
pliably  like  timber  baskets— though,  how  their  horses' 
legs  and  shoulders  stand  the  jerking  and  the  violent  and 
perpetual  twisting,  I  could  less  easily  understand.  At 
five  dollars  an  acre,  the  average  freehold  price  of  the 
land  in  this  region,  and,  with  the  four  dollars  which  they 
promptly  get  for  the  cord  of  wood,  which  it  is  an  easy 
day's  work  to  draw  to  West  Point  or  Fort  Montgomery 
(their  two  nearest  villages),  a  mountain  farm  is  soon  paid 
for,  even  without  stock-grazing.  The  larger  wood  renews 
itself  every  twenty  years,  and  it  is  very  much  bettered, 
meantime,  by  the  constant  thinnings  of  the  prolific  and 
profitable  hoop-saplings.  There  are  various  incidentals 
by  which  the  children  can  turn  a  penny  ;  such  as  cran 
berries,  hickory  nuts,  chestnuts,  black-walnuts,  and  wild- 
cherries  ;  and,  as  we  seemed  to  start  up  partridges  every 
where  in  riding  along,  and  wild  rabbits  are  "  as  plenty  as 
blackberries,"  there  can  be  no  lack  of  good  feeding  here 
abouts — to  say  nothing  of  the  lakes  full  of  perch  and 
pickerel  within  sound  of  every  man's  dinner-horn. 

And,  now  (to  digress  a  moment),  will  the  reader  please 
take  the  above  statistically  true  picture  of  a  land  of  easy 
livelihood  and  romantic  beauty,  and  place  it  alongside  of 
the  harrowing  descriptions  of  hunger  and  lack  of  employ 
ment  among  the  emigrants  and  laborers,  given  us  daily 


258  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE  WILD. 

by  the  newspapers  of  a  city  distant  but  three  hours  by 
steamboat  or  railroad  ?  The  difficulty  is  not  in  an 
impassable  gulf  of  "no  money  to  make  a  beginning." 
All  through  this  region,  throughout  the  year,  it  is  next 
to  impossible  to  get  "  hands  "  enough  (for  the  iron  mines, 
clearing,  and  other  labor)  at  a  dollar  a  day — an  easy 
opening  for  an  industrious  man  to  lay  up  money  ;  while, 
once  known  enough  to  be  trusted,  he  could  readily  get 
trusted  for  the  necessary  land  and  implements  to  make  a 
beginning.  But  no — there  are  two  other  difficulties.  It 
is  too  lonely  for  the  Irishman.  And  neither  the  Irishman 
nor  the  German  can  be  his  own  wheelwright,  carpenter, 
blacksmith,  doctor,  cobbler,  tailor  and  schoolmaster — as 
the  Yankee  can,  and  is.  The  lack  of  society  in  the  moun 
tains,  and  the  lade  of  American  omni- cute-ness  in  the 
settler,  are  the  two  difficulties.  With  the  welcome  given 
to  my  companion  (at  whose  forge,  of  course,  every  man 
for  twenty  miles  around  had  looked  in),  I  saw  something 
of  the  home  of  one  of  the  Yankee  mountain-farmers,  on 
our  route.  Just  inside  the  barn-yard,  through  which  we 
entered,  stood  the  ox-frame  where  he  shoes  his  own 
oxen.  A  new  wood-wagon  stood  near  by,  just  finished  by 
his  boys — one  specimen  of  the  many  kinds  of  "  jobs  "  that 
they  can  do.  The  entry  was  ornamented  with  a  set  of 
narrow  shelves,  upon  which  were  arranged  specimens  of 
all  the  minerals  of  the  mountains  round  about.  A  most 


THE    FARMER'S    FAMILY.  259 

plentiful  dinner,  to  which  we  were  cordially  invited, 
smoked  on  the  table.  In  conversation,  dress,  kind  and 
intelligent  politeness,  and  personal  health  and  bearing, 
this  farmer's  grown-up  family — products  of  this  spot  of  his 
own  earning — were  fine  specimens  of  the  human  race.  I 
asked  the  hale  and  vigorous  father,  whether  he  ever  found 
it  lonely.  "  Oh,"  he  said,  "  we  don't  care  to  be  any 
more  crowded  with  neighbors." 

But,  I  have  a  little  anticipated  the  story  of  our 
route. 

We  reached  the  natural  bridge  a  little  before  noon  ; 
and  here  my  voracious  hunger  (with  four  hours  on  horse 
back)  got  the  upper  hand  of  my  romantic  curiosity. 
There  stood  the  bridge,  it  was  true — but  short  of  it,  lay 
a  mossy  rock  shaped  like  a  luxurious  sofa,  upon  which 
might  be  spread,  between  the  blacksmith's  reclining  figure 
and  my  own,  the  various  sandwiches,  etc.,  which  had  been 
prepared  in  case  of  meeting  with  an  appetite  hereabouts — 
and  I  proposed  to  let  the  bridge  stand,  till  we  could  get 
something  under  our  collapsing  enthusiasm.  Torrey  ob 
jected.  The  natural  bridge  is  one  of  the  neglectednesses 
of  the  neighborhood  about  which  he  habitually  discourses, 
and  his  bottled  up  eloquence  was  just  ready  to  pop  cork 
— and,  besides  (as  I  discovered  after  wards ),  he  expected  a 
better  dinner  half  way  up  the  mountain  beyond.  But  I 
carried  my  point,  being  his  visiting  guest  for  the  day  ; 


260  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE  WILD. 

and,  with  the  sunshine  of  a  genial  noon  of  mid-December 
for  a  table-cloth,  we  spread  our  repast.  It  seemed  to 
me  I  had  never  in  my  life  before  eaten  with  such  an  appe 
tite.  The  picturesque  scenery  and  hallowed  stillness  around 
us  feasted  the  eyes  and  heart  at  the  same  time.  My 
"  grace  after  meat "  was  a  devout  recogntion  of  the  ex 
ceeding  beauty  of  that  winter  afternoon,  as  well  as  vivid 
thanks  to  God  for  a  full  use  of  the  senses  given  to 
enjoy  it. 

The  natural  bridge  is  a  massive  porch,  covering  the 
last  stair  of  a  staircase  by  which  a  cascading  stream 
descends  into  a  mountain  lake.  Three  lovely  things  so 
close  together,  as  that  leaping  cascade,  that  singular 
archway,  and  the  lake  below,  could  hardly  be  found,  even 
in  the  composition  of  a  landscape  painter.  The  long 
sheet  of  water  narrows  to  this  point,  like  a  receding  aisle 
ending  at  a  glittering  altar-step,  and  far  down  is  a  little 
fairy  island  standing  out  from  the  shore — the  garden  of 
wild-flowers,  perhaps,  to  which  the  descending  stream  has 
its  errand.  What  Naiad,  of  name  as  yet  by  poet  unut- 
tered,  comes  down  those  bright  steps  through  the  hem 
lock  grove,  and,  laying  off  her  foaming  mantle  under  the 
rocky  porch,  glides  silently  along  the  smooth  floor  of  the 
lake  ?  Here  is  a  poem  in  the  mountains — wanting  only 
its  echo  inked  over. 

Torrey  once  sent  a  friend  to  see  this  bridge,  and  ho 


THE      NATURAL      BRIDGE.  261 

rode  across  it  without  suspecting  it  was  under  him,  though 
he  might  seat  his  country  congregation  (our  friend  was  a 
clergyman)  under  shelter  of  the  rock.  It  is  part  of  the 
common  horse-path  around  the  head  of  the  lake.  There 
is  no  daylight  to  be  seen  under  it,  however.  The  stream, 
on  the  upper  side,  dashes  into  a  dark  cave  and  is  lost  to 
sight;  and  it  comes  out  of  another  dark  cave  en  the 
lower  side,  the  two  caves  being  separated  by  a  partition 
of  solid  rock,  under  the  deep-down  foundations  of  which 
the  water  finds  its  invisible  way.  The  well,  across  which 
this  partition  rock  extends,  is  open  on  the  side  next  the 
lake,  and  has  been  plummeted  to  the  depth  of  sixty  feet. 
It  is  always  kept  full  by  springs,  even  when  the  cascade 
dries  up  with  summer-heats — a  reservoir  of  cool  and  pure 
water,  ready  made  for  the  happy  scenery-lover  who  will 
one  day  make  his  home  upon  this  prettiest  cottage-site  in 
the  world.  I  hope  to  stand  upon  the  bridge  and  look 
down  the  lake  to  that  fair  island,  in  June,  when  the  lake 
itself  is  islanded  in  leaves. 

My  friend  moused  about  the  dark  corners  of  the  cave, 
and  pulled  out  various  minerals  which  would  wear  most 
scientific  holes  in  a  horseman's  pocket.  I  spent  more 
time  in  praying  that  the  woodman's  axe  might  spare  the 
tall  hemlocks  on  the  stream  above.  After  strolling 
around  till  I  had  got  the  bridge  well  learned  among  my 
lessons  by  heart,  we  remounted  and  pursued  our  way  up 


262  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE WILD. 

the  mountain,  arriving  soon  at  the  hospitable  house  of 
Friend  Hollett,  the  Quaker  woodsman-farmer  already 
spoken  of.  Here  all  looked  like  plenty,  vigor,  self-reli 
ance,  and  independence  of  all  ordinary  usages  that  were 
not  convenient.  A  dinner  (for  which  we  had  just  spoiled 
our  appetite)  smoked  on  the  table  ;  but  Torrey  sat  down, 
while  our  horses  were  being  fed  in  the  stable,  to  have  a 
chat  with  his  friends  in  the  house.  The  shelves  of  mine 
rals  interested  me.  They  showed  the  self-cultivated  intel 
ligence  of  the  hard- working  old  man.  He  settled  down 
there  between  thirty  and  forty  years  ago,  when  first  mar 
ried,  taking  the  land  on  credit  and  owning  little  besides 
his  axe,  and  here  he  is,  as  healthy  and  active  now  as  he 
was  then,  a  grown-up  family  of  well-educated  sons  and 
daughters  around  him,  and  the  three  hundred  wild  acres, 
of  which  he  has  gradually  become  the  independent  mas 
ter,  converted  by  his  industry  into  a  fine  mountain  farm, 
covered  with  stock,  and  amply  sufficing  for  the  employ 
ment  and  the  wants  of  his  tall  and  strong  children.  A 
more  cheerful,  bright,  healthy,  and  hearty  home  could  not 
be  found  in  the  world.  Such  are  our  country's  best  of 
citizens,  and  happiest  of  men,  I  think. 

Of  the  hardest  part  of  our  day's  doings — the  ascent 
the  two  mountain-peaks  on  foot — I  have  not  left  myself 
room  to  say  much.  It  was  the  part  of  the  day's  exer 
cise  that  tried  my  new  lease  of  health  most  severely  ;  for 


THE    "SEVEN    LAKES. "  263 

I  have  scarce  taken  a  long  walk  for  a  year,  without  a 
horse  under  me  to  do  the  walking,  and  it  seems  a  short 
allowance  to  have  only  two  legs  and  those  my  own. 
But  I  panted  along,  after  the  better  wind  of  tough 
Farmer  Hollctt  and  the  blacksmith,  and  we  accomplished 
our  second  ascent,  to  the  highest  peak,  somewhere  about 
an  hour  before  sundown.  It  was  a  table  summit  of 
platform  rock,  covered  with  crisp  moss  which  the  Indians 
boil  and  can  subsist  upon  in  winter,  and  partly  shaded 
with  dwarf  hemlocks  and  hickories.  The  rifts  in  the  rock, 
and  the  square-angle  shape  of  the  huge  fragments,  look  as 
if  designed  to  accommodate  hermits  ;  for  there  were 
scores  of  cottages  with  three  solid  sides  ready  built  around 
a  floor  of  stone — carpeted  with  moss — nothing  wanting 
but  a  roof  and  a  door. 

With  the  autumnal  haze  in  the  atmosphere,  we  could 
only  see  five  of  the  "  Seven  Lakes"  usually  visible  from 
the  summit.  But  the  difference  of  level,  between  these 
beautiful  sheets  of  water  laying  around  us,  was  startling- 
ly  novel  as  an  effect  in  so  wild  a  landscape.  There  were 
two,  particularly,  into  either  of  which  it  looked  as  if  we 
might  almost  toss  a  pebble — one,  fifty  feet  below  us  on 
the  right  hand  of  the  peak  where  we  stood,  and  another, 
three  or  four  hundred  feet  below  us  on  the  left — like 
two  silver  balance-scales,  of  which  one  had  sunk  into  the 
valley  and  the  other  had  mounted  to  the  sky.  These  lofty 


264  LETTERS      FROM      IDLEWILD. 

cloud  tanks  are  from  two  to  four  miles  in  circumference, 
and  each  one  seems  formed  into  a  cup  by  four  mountains 
—vases  with  scalloped  rims — and  their  edges  and  steep 
sides  looked  to  be  of  unbroken  foliage  and  wildness. 
What  stops  for  summer  haunts  !  To  think,  that  for  the 
price  of  a  small  house  in  a  brick  block  in  New  York — 
say  for  the  ten  thousand  dollars  which  a  man  pays  for  a 
barely  respectable  number  in  a  street —  he  might  here 
build  a  cottage  and  own  a  mountain  and  a  lake  for  its 
belongings  ! 

We  had  left  our  horses  tied  in  the  woods,  and  it  was 
important  to  get  to  something  like  a  "  critter-path,"  at 
least,  before  dusk  ;  so  we  hurried  our  descent,  Farmer 
Hollett  accompanying  us,  with  his  active  feet,  as  far  as 
the  ridge  from  which  water  would  run  down  hill  towards 
the  Hudson.  On  the  way  he  showed  us  a  spot  where  he 
once  met  a  panther  and  went  at  him  with  a  hickory  stick 
— all  the  weapon  he  had — the  "  painter"  (as  he  called 
him)  frightened  out  of  the  encounter  by  the  halloo  and 
the  fury  of  his  first  onslaught.  These  dangerous  animals 
are  no  more  found  in  this  region,  however. 

Parting  from  the  vigorous  and  bright-spirited  old 
mountaineer  with  real  regret,  we  started  for  home  in  the 
gathering  twilight — eight  or  nine  miles  of  hill  and 
valley  stretching  away  before  us.  In  the  glow  of  the  full 
moon  which  was  soon  flooding  our  way  with  silver  light, 


THE      RETURN.  265 

it  was  a  beautiful  ride,  even  with  the  scenery  of  leafless 
winter.  The  road  soon  grew  smooth,  our  horses  were 
fast,  and  my  friend  was  most  instructively  eloquent  upon 
local  history  as  we  passed  along.  I  left  him  at  his  shop- 
door,  somewhere  about  eight  o'clock,  and,  hitching  his  bri 
dle  over  my  arm,  I  trotted  home  with  my  led  horse — 
three  good  appetites,  at  least,  entering  my  own  moonlit 
gate  together. 


12 


266  LETTERS      FROM      I  D  L  E  \V  I  L  D  . 


LETTER    XLI. 

Degrees  of  Horseback  Acquaintance  with  a  Road — Slaughter-House  "Round 
by  Headley's  "—Geese  and  their  Envy— Goose-Descent  upon  Unexpected 
Ice,  &c.,  &c. 

January  7, 1S54. 

I  FIND  there  are  three  degrees  of  horseback  acquaint 
ance  with  a  road.  First,  you  are  charmed  with  its 
novelty,  and  see  only  its  beauties.  Second,  the  novelty 
wears  off,  and  you  see  its  unsightly  spots,  and  tire  of  it. 
Third,  you  become  habituated  to  it,  as  the  place  for 
exhilirating  exercise  or  for  indulgent  reverie  with  slacked 
bridle,  and  then  it  is  a  friend — the  spare  friend  of  undis- 
cussed  confidences  that  one  needs — listening  always, 
blaming  never.  Considering  how  much  the  roads  are 
talked  of,  both  as  to  preference  and  comfort,  by  all  kinds 
of  people  living  in  the  country — how  much  more  than  the 
brooks  and  rivers — it  is  a  little  strange  that  it  has  never 
been  thought  poetical  to  name  them.  I  could  be  very 
tenderly  fanciful  about  one  or  two  that  I  know — infallible 
dis-irksome-izers,  within  a  gallop  of  Idlewild — but  that 
the  world,  growing  less  romantic,  might  prefer  to  know 
them  by  the  mile-posts. 


THE     SLAUGHTER-HOUSE.  261 

But  the  world  is,  at  least,  ready  for  a  fact  ;  and  I  may 
tell,  statistically,  how  one  of  my  road-nymphs  is  lately 
desecrated  beyond  all  hope  of  poetical  naming.  "  Round 
by  Headley's"  we  commonly  call  it — an  upper  road, 
along  the  bank  of  the  Hudson,  on  which  our  friend  the 
hero-grapher  built  his  beautiful  house,  and  the  most 
charming  of  carriage-drives,  avenued  with  cedars  and 
country  seats  for  miles.  As  the  finest  rural  outlet  from 
the  handsomest  streets  of  Newburgh,  we  drove  over  it 
often,  particularly  with  friends  and  strangers,  whom  we 
wished  to  impress  agreeably  with  the  scenery  between 
Idlewild  and  there.  The  house,  consecrated  by  having 
once  been  the  house  of  Durand,  the  artist,  is  at  the 
Quassaic  bend  of  the  road.  But  Newburgh  has  a  new 
prosperity.  With  the  trick  of  milder  winters  that  the 
world  has  got  into,  it  has  been  found  necessary  that  the 
Ohio  pork  should  die  nearer  to  market.  To  the  New- 
burgh  end  of  the  railroad,  therefore,  it  comes  with  legs 
down  instead  of  up,  and  the  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
postponed  Ohio  deaths  take  place  at  this  point  of 
embarkation  for  the  city.  While  the  pig's  post  mortem 
road  (down  the  throats  of  New  Yorkers)  is  thus  made 
sweeter,  no  doubt  ;  the  road  I  speak  of,  on  the  heights 
above  the  Hudson,  is  made  almost  impassable,  at  one 
point,  by  a  different  stage  of  the  same  sweetener  in  pro 
gress.  Just  out  of  reach  of  the  suburbs,  on  an  ascent 


268  LETTERS     FROM     IDLE  WILD. 

cresting  a  romantic  curve,  winding  away  towards  the 
hills,  where  I  oftenest  drew  rein  to  show  the  stranger  a 
landscape  unsurpassed — close  to  the  road  and  as  inevit 
able  as  a  toll-gate — has  arisen  one  of  the  fruition-halls 
where  the  pig-deferred  passes  into  the  dignity  of  pork,  a 
slaughter-house  as  long  as  Westminister  Abbey,  and 
filled  with  a  wilderness  of  busy  butchers.  Oh,  the  obitu 
ary  notice  of  these  deaths,  which  one  gets,  first  and  last, 
on  the  publishing  winds  !  It  has  stopped  off  that  upper 
road,  for  me.  And,  indeed,  for  the  other  end  of  the  pig- 
Styx  there  launched  upon — the  resurrection  as  a  roasted 
chine,  glorified  in  gravy — I  must  confess  a  prejudice  not 
lessened  by  the  knowledge  of  these  last  moments. 

Dryden  speaks  of  the  copyright  a  man  has  in  his  own 
nose  ;  and  there  seems  an  invasion  of  such  copyright, 
certainly,  in  a  slaughter-house,  which  waylays  and  takes, 
uninvited,  possession  of  the  traveller's  sense  of  smell  for 
a  mile.  Should  there  not  be  some  more  definite  legisla 
tion  on  this  subject  ?  A  law  prescribing  a  distance,  for 
this  class  of  buildings,  from  any  public  highway,  would  be 
grateful,  at  least,  to  the  nostrils  of  ]S"ewburgh,  with  its 
increasing  business  in  Ohio  disembowellings.  It  might  be 
advocated,  indeed,  as  a  protection  to  life,  from  the  terror 
which  often  seizes  a  horse  in  approaching  the  vitiated 
atmosphere.  My  own  team  requires  some  persuasion  of 
whip  and  voice  to  go  past  the  golgotha  I  speak  of. 


GOOSE      MUSIC.  269 

This  law  seems  a  necessity  for  the  nose.  But  I  sup 
pose  one  may  venture  to  name  a  law  that  would  be  a 
luxury  to  the  ear — in  the  way  of  promoting  agreeableness 
in  the  road  one  daily  rides  over.  A  statute  providing 
that  every  adult  goose  should  be  muzzled,  when  turned 
loose  on  the  public  highway,  would  remove,  for  me,  a  very 
considerable  nuisance.  There  are  few  farmers  who  have 
not  their  flock  of  geese.  It  is  an  animal  tolerant  enough 
of  mediocrity — a  slow  pace,  as  you  pass  along,  provoking 
no  very  hostile  notice.  But  the  high  stepping  and  fast 
trotting  of  my  blood  mare  is  distasteful,  as  far  as  my 
experience  goes,  to  all  geese,  far  and  near ;  and,  from 
every  pond  and  puddle  that  I  pass,  comes  out  their 
chorus  of  hostility.  With  music  from  almost  everything 
else — cow-bells,  horse-neighings,  snow-bird  twitterings, 
hoof-patterings,  mill-streams,  ice-crackings,  flails,  wind- 
sighings,  and  telegraph-wires — the  discord,  the  only  one 
discord  in  the  wayfarer's  anthem,  as  I  hear  it  on  the  road, 
is  from  the  screeching  throttle  of  the  goose.  As  it  is  not 
only  unmusical  but  unmeaning — a  silly  rage  provoked  by 
nothing — we  might  reasonably  muzzle  geese,  by  a  law 
requiring  some  show  of  sense  or  reason  in  any  utterance 
thrust  upon  the  public. 

But  I  had  a  laugh  at  a  goose,  yesterday — with  a  lesson 
in  it  too.  Coming  home,  towards  evening,  with  my 
wagon-full  of  children,  the  air  over  our  head  was  sud- 


270  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE  WILD. 

denly  darkened  by  the  wings  of  a  very  big  bird — my 
neighbor's  fattest  waddler,  who,  chased  by  a  dog,  had 
concluded  to  up  feathers,  fly  over  the  barn,  and  take 
refuge  in  the  ever-reliable  and  long-tried  bosom  of  the 
river.  But  it  was  the  day  after  the  first  sharp  frost,  and 
the  stream,  though  as  clear  as  crystal,  was  of  icy  smooth 
ness,  and  as  impenetrable  as  a  rock.  Down  came  the 
goose,  with  full  faith  in  it  for  long-tried  water — and  the 
way  she  slid  over,  and  brought  up  at  the  frozen  bank 
opposite,  after  that  heavy  bump  upon  her  astonished 
egg-basket,  was  boundlessly  delightful  to  the  children. 
Besides  the  instruction  in  it,  as  to  a  winter-trial  of 
summer  friends,  it  was  a  comfort,  with  a  pleasant  spite  in 
it,  to  have  one  good  laugh  at  a  goose  that  waddles  and 
screams  after  me  every  time  I  trot  past  my  neighbor's 
barn-yard. 


BETHESDA      BAY.  2H 


LETTER   XLIL 

Pool  of  Bethesda  above  the  Highlands— Climate  of  Highland  Terrace— Late 
Snows— Christmas,  and  Dressing  of  Church— Poem  on  Farmers'  Christmas 
Preparations— Black  Peter— Snake  Love  of  Solitude,  &c.,  &c. 

January  14, 1853. 

SAMUEL  B.  RUGGLES,  our  State's  torch-bearer  and  pre- 
historian  of  Internal  Improvement,  has  mapped  down  the 
majestic  river-pass  through  the  Highlands  as  the  Gate 
from  the  Western  Lakes  to  New  York  and  the  Atlantic. 
To  our  American  Palestine,  New  York  is  the  Jerusalem; 
and,  outside  this  its  gate,  physicians  have  now  located  a 
"pool  of  Bethesda"  (the  Bay  above  the  Highlands), 
such  as  blessed  the  outside  of  the  gate  to  Jerusalem  of 
old.  With  the  healing  that  is  found  upon  the  beautiful 
shores  of  this  spread  of  the  river,  it  might  be  called 
BETHESDA  BAY,  with  Scriptural  propriety  ;  though  the 
angel  that  goes  down  and  troubles  the  healing  pool  is  the 
morning  and  evening  breeze;  and  the  " first  stepping 
in,"  after  the  "  moving  of  the  water,"  is  a  correspond 
ingly  enlarged  cure  for  many  instead  of  one. 

Writing  from  this  Bethesda,  I  feel  bound  to  chronicle 


272  LETTERS      FROM     IDLEWILD. 

for  invalids  its  allotments  of  climate  ;  and,  by  compari 
son  with  the  reports  of  the  weather  in  Boston  and  Xew 
York,  there  seems  to  be  a  protection  to  our  Highland 
Terrace  in  the  arm  of  mountain-range  that  encircles  us. 
There  was  sleighing  in  Boston  at  Christmas-time,  and  a 
snow-storm  in  Xew  York  ;  and  yet,  here,  the  temperate 
and  bright  autumnal  weather  (without  a  flake  of  snow) 
lasted  till  the  evening  of  December  the  28th — the  river 
navigable  till  then,  and  our  roads  as  hard  and  dusty  as  in 
summer.  For  the  invalid  who  wishes  to  ride,  and  clings 
to  the  liberty  of  open  air,  this  is  a  blessed  belating  of 
the  coming  of  imprisoning  winter.  Of  the  twenty  human 
souls  who  form  the  homestead  eensus  of  Idlewild,  none 
but  the  two  lately  born  (one  in  my  tenant's  cottage  and 
one  in  my  own)  would  have  found  it  cold  idling  out  of 
doors,  any  noon  till  the  third  after  Christmas. 

But,  with  what  bridal  apparelling  winter  came  !  The 
sleigh-bells  have  rung  merrily  from  the  first  evening  of 
snow  (it  is  January  3,  as  I  write)  ;  and,  with  neither 
thaw  nor  high  wind,  the  eider-down  cloaks  of  the  ever 
green  trees  in  the  procession,  are  scarce  disturbed — a  six 
days'  wear  of  white  favors,  unusual  even  for  Winter's 
evergreen  bridemaids,  while  the  icicle  groomsmen  of  the 
New  Year  hang  round  the  church  with  splendor  quite  as 
undiminished. 

And  the  beautiful  church  within  a  mile  of  Idlewild — 


A     CHRISTMAS      POEM.  273 

a  most  English-rural  and  tasteful  Gothic  chapel  of  stone 
was  charmingly  arrayed  in  the  evergreens  of  our  neigh 
borhood,  home  as  it  is  of  hemlocks  and  cedars,  laurels 
and  ivy.  How  like  the  glow  of  a  smile  from  within  the 

altar a    Redeemer's    smile — seems     this    time-honored 

brightening  of  the  church  at  Christmas  !  Esto  perpetua ! 
It  is  a  custom  that  should  be  followed  by  all  churches,  of 
all  denominations.  A  simple  and  admirable  poem  on  the 
subject,  came  to  me  yesterday,  and  I  will  insert  it  here, 
suggestively  and  commemoratively  as  well  as  admiringly : 

THE  FARMER'S  PREPARATIONS  FOR  DRESSING  A  COUNTRY  CHURCH 
WITH  EVERGREENS  AT  CHRISTMAS. 

EMANUEL.   GOD  WITH  US. 
To  work!  to  work!  ere  rise  of  moon  •, 
Lo !  Christmas-tide  is  coming  soon  ; 
The  church  needs  many  a  fresh  festoon. 

'Midst  heaps  of  glossy  evergreen, 
The  farmer's  daughter  now  is  seen 
With  busy  hands  and  dimpled  mien. 

Here  are  no  palms  in  victor  pride, 
But  mountain-laurel  branching  wide, 
And  dwarfish  pine  from  bleak  hillside. 

We  do  not  feel  of  palms  the  loss : 
Come,  let  us  weave  a  green-leaved  Cross, 
And  write  GOD'S  name  in  wild  wood-moss. 
12* 


274  LETTERS      FROM      I  D  L  E  W  I  L  D  . 

Come!  write  the  word  "Emanuel," 
And  add,  "God  with  us,"  lettered  well, 
And  arch-wise  let  it  eastward  swell. 

Wreaths,  for  the  lectiirn  of  the  priest, 
On  each  side-wall  three  rings  at  least ; 
A  green  star  for  the  rosy  East ! 

Above  the  panes  the  Star  must  shine, 
Albove  the  consecrated  wine, 
And  lift  all  hearts  to  hopes  divine. 

Thus  shall  the  farmer's  quiet  home 
A  greenhouse  of  the  Lord  become, 
A  fore-court  to  a  heaven-high  dome. 


The  gentleman  who  sends  me  this  simple  and  beautiful 
common-life  poem,  says  only  that  it  was  a  favorite  of  one 
now  cold  in  death,  who,  last  Christmas,  assisted  in  dress 
ing  their  village  church — but,  though  it  reads  like  verse 
by  George  Herbert,  I  suppose  it  to  be  now  first 
published. 

The  oldest  Idlewild-ian  passed  New- Years'  day  with  us 
— black  Peter,  who,  years  ago,  had  charge  of  the  farm 
of  which  our  seventy-acre  glen  was  the  wilderness 
portion,  valued  only  for  its  wood.  The  old  man  has  been 
three  times  bought  and  sold  as  a  slave,  and  I  have  men 
tioned  him  before  as  famous  for  the  way  he  was  always 


SNAKES      LOVE      SOLITUDE.  275 

loved  by  the  children.  He  is  decrepid  now,  and  goes  on 
crutches,  and  lives  alone  in  his  hut  under  the  mountain  ; 
but  his  memory  is  good,  and  he  tells  me  where  stood  the 
monarch  pines  and  primeval  cedars  we  would  give  so 
much  to  replace— touching  stories,  to  me,  of  beauty  and 
stateliness  that  have  here  lived  their  half  century  and 
passed  away.  We  muse  on  the  coming  round  of  our 
turn,  when  such  a  wheel  of  oblivion  is  brought  to  view  ! 
A  chance  thread,  like  this  poor  black  cripple's  admiring 
remembrance,  the  only  bridge  back  from  the  world's  easy 
forgetfulness  1 

But,  while  the  children  spread  out  their  Christmas 
toys  before  old  Peter  on  the  parlor  floor,  I  stumbled  on 
a  scrap  of  knowledge  in  his  rag-bag  of  experience. 
Wondering,  that,  in  my  two  years'  acquaintance  with  so 
wild  a  place  as  the  glen,  I  had  seen  but  two  snakes  :  he 
said,  snakes  were  slow  to  come  back  after  they  were  once 
driven  away.  And  sheep  drove  these  away.  Not  that 
the  sheep  were  the  enemy  of  the  snake,  for  they  never 
took  any  notice  of  one,  that  he  knew  of.  But  a  snake 
must  be  where  he  can  sleep  uninterrupted  ;  and,  put  a 
flock  where  you  please,  they  will  walk  over  all  the  ground 
they  can  get  at — good  feed  in  one  corner  of  the  lot 
making  no  sort  of  difference.  It's  seeing  a  sheep  every 
where,  that  the  snakes  don't  like. 

My  servants  being  colored  people,  and  my  daughter's 


276  LETTERS      FROM      IDLEWILD. 

nurse,  who  has  had  the  care  of  all  her  bright  eleven 
years,  having  been  also  a  slave,  Peter  was  a  symposiarch 
among  his  social-hearted  race  for  the  day.  They  made 
much  of  him.  At  night  they  loaded  themselves  into  the 
double  sleigh,  to  take  him  home  to  his  hut  with  company 
and  merry  bells — a  visit  of  the  sunshine  of  love  to  a 
spot,  where  (from  its  being  under  the  north  knee  of  the 
Storm-King),  there  are  six  winter  weeks  that  the  sun 
does  not  look  in  at  his  door.  I  wish  there  were  more 
like  old  Peter.  The  mixture  of  unembarrassed  self-pos 
session,  simplicity,  and  respectful  courtesy,  which  mark  his 
manners,  belong  to  a  class  that  is  fast  passing  away 
uncopied. 


THE      FAMILY      WAGON.  277 


LETTER  XLIII. 

Trip  of  the  Family  Wagon  to  Newburgh— The  Fashionable  Resort— Chapman's 
Bakery— Aristocracy  "  setled  down"— Newburgh  as  a  Neighbor. 

January  22, 1853. 

THE  daily  trip  of  the  family  wagon  to  Newburgh  is 
the  lump  of  sugar  which  it  requires  to  make  winter  seclu 
sion  (palatable  to  me,  "  cold  without")  palatable  to  the 
less  whirlsated  tastes  of  children  and  servants.  Ah, 
the  event  that  it  is  1— its  arrangements  and  discussions— 
the  spare  seats,  and  who  are  to  have  them— time  of  start 
ing  and  list  of  commissions — probabilities  of  weather  and 
proper  cloakings  and  bonnetings — room  for  bundles  and 
baskets,  and  plans  for  calls  by  the  way  !  And,  with 
errands  varying  in  importance,  from  a  skein  of  silk  to  a 
friend  expected  by  the  railroad,  the  charmingly  unfailing 
possibility  of  a  package  by  Express  !  I  had  never  be 
fore  realized  how  much  there  is,  if  not  of  necessity,  at 
least  of  inspiriting  variety,  in  daily  change  of  scene  for  the 
inmates  of  a  home  in  the  country.  City  servants,  parti 
cularly,  are  kept  contented  by  having  a  possibility  of  it, 
at  will.  Children's  spirits  fairly  effervesce  with  it.  Par- 


278  LETTERS      FROM      I  OLE  WILD. 

lor  and  kitchen  are  famished  by  it  with  mortar  for  the 
bricks  of  daily  duties  and  conversation.  It  seems  un 
equal  allotment  for  a  household,  to  have  all  prisoners 
within  home  and  around  it,  except  the  master  ;  and  the 
master's  sparkle  of  life  is  very  much  increased  by  the 
expansion  of  home-talk  for  all — the  incidents  on  the  road 
and  the  shoppings  and  sight-seeings,  the  meetings  with 
friends,  and  the  variations  of  light  and  shade  upon  hill 
and  river.  Of  course  I  am  not  myself  the  Jehu,  on  these 
errand  trips.  It  takes  all  the  memory  and  management 
of  Bell  (my  Yankee  tenant  and  lesser-anxiety-inan),  to 
discharge  the  divers  responsibilities  of  such  a  load  of 
treasures  on  a  pilgrimage  of  trifles.  Even  if  I  had  the 
necessary  un-fret-ability  and  hour-glass  recoverableness 
from  exhausting  innurnerablenesses,  however,  my  lungs 
cannot  stand  the  inactive  exposure  of  a  drive.  I  am  off 
on  horseback,  meantime,  resting  my  powers  of  attention 
while  another  animal  exercises  me.  But  I  get  the  news 
of  the  wagon-trip  at  the  tea-table,  and  it  is  all  the  live 
lier  that  we  have  separate  excursions  of  which  to  tell  the 
adventures. 

Newburgh,  our  country-town,  has  twelve  thousand  in 
habitants,  and  a  long  thoroughfare  of  shops,  perpetually 
thronged  with  the  custom  of  a  rural  population  for  twenty 
miles  around.  The  farmers'  wagons  fill  the  street,  and  the 
farmers'  wives  and  daughters  crowd  the  sidewalks  and 


C  II  A  P  M  A  X  '  S      B  A  K  E  11  Y  .  279 

counters.  Each  store  has  most  things  that  are  possible, 
to  sell,  and  there  are  three  equivalents  given  for  goods — 
talk,  produce  and  money.  The  expect-to-be-beat-dowu-age, 
in  the  first  charge  for  an  article,  is  about  twenty-five  per 
cent.,  though,  for  a  regular  customer,  who  spends  without 
this  skirmish  of  'cuteness,  allowance  is  soon  made.  Few 
encounters  of  sharpness  are  fought  out  with  more  skill 
and  pertinacity,  probably,  than  the  purchase  of  a  calico 
dress  to  be  paid  for  in  eggs  or  butter.  It  would  interest 
the  inquiring  observer  to  have  a  bargain  for  a  pocket- 
comb  pending  alongside. 

But,  the  most  interesting  shop  of  Newburgh  would 
never  be  found  out  by  the  stranger.  It  is,  indeed, 
curiously  contradictory  in  its  looks  and  its  "  run  of  cus 
tom."  You  would  go  in  and  out  of  it,  and  describe  it  as 
a  cheap  bakery — one  of  those  old-fashioned  dingy  half- 
shops,  with  a  long  single  counter,  on  the  street  end  of 
which  is  a  glass-case  for  tarts  and  cake,  while  the  remain 
ing  extension  is  covered  with  fresh  loaves,  scales  and 
weights,  brown  paper  and  gingerbread.  It  is  partly  a 
grocery,  too  ;  and  behind  you,  against  the  wall,  as  you 
stand  at  the  counter,  are  boxes  of  herrings,  drums  of  figs, 
coffee-bags,  pea-nu^s,  starch,  soap,  lemons,  candles  and 
brooms.  At  the  far  end,  where  the  bags  and  barrels  are 
set  back  to  give  a  foot  or  two  more  of  space,  there  stands 
a  cheap  old  stove,  with  a  rusty  funnel  running  up  to  the 


280        LETTERS   FROM   IDLE  WILD. 

ceiling,  and  one  or  two  old  wooden  chairs  around  it.  In 
all  Newburgh  there  is  scarce  so  shabby  an  old  shop.  Yet, 
in  all  Orange  County  there  is  not  an  apartment  which 
receives  dally  such  an  amount  of  aristocratic  society. 
With  the  first  settlement  of  the  town,  Chapman's  Bakery 
was  the  stopping-place  of  the  vehicles  of  the  wealthy 
families  of  the  country  around  about  ;  and  spite  of  a 
modern  and  spacious  confectioner's  shop,  a  little  farther 
on,  and  larger  and  more  comfortable  "  stores"  of  every 
kind,  near  by,  the  descendants  of  the  old-family  aristo 
cracy  have  continued  to  make  the  narrow  baker's  shop 
their  place  of  gossip  and  gathering.  Towards  noon  of 
every  pleasant  day,  winter  and  summer,  the  handsomest 
equipages  of  the  neighborhood  begin  to  assemble  along 
that  part  of  the  sidewalk  of  Newburgh.  The  gentlemen 
hand  the  ladies  into  the  shop,  and  there,  for  two  or  three 
hours,  is  the  place  of  rendezvous  after  the  different 
errands  of  each,  the  place  to  be  found  by  their  friends 
from  a  distance,  and  the  place  to  exchange  news  and  gos 
sip  away  the  morning.  There  are  no  better  horses,  more 
well-appointed  turn-outs,  or  neater  coachmen,  on  any  pub 
lic  promenade  in  the  country  than  are  daily  to  be  seen 
here.  The  gentlemen  who  group  about  the  flag-stone 
step  or  inside  the  little  glass  door,  are  of  high  considera 
tion  in  the  city,  for  their  fortunes  and  family  names.  The 
ladies,  who  lay  their  costly  handkerchiefs  down  upon  the 


THE      FASHIONABLE      LOUNGE.  281 

flour-barrels,  and  sit  around  the  stove  in  the  old  whittled 
chairs,  and  eat  ginger-nuts  at  the  counter,  are  very 
fashionable  persons,  in  full  promenade  toilette.  And  so 
crowded  is  the  long  shop,  between  eleven  and  two,  that 
the  boy,  who  has  looked  in  at  the  bow-window,  and  come 
in  for  his  cent's  worth  of  gingerbread,  fairly  elbows  his 
way  into  the  "  best  society"  to  get  at  it. 

But  the  curious  part  of  Chapman's  Bakery  is,  that  it 
suffices  for  the  social  want  of  a  large  and  wealthy  neighbor 
hood.  There  is  no  other  society.  Nothing  like  a  "  party" 
is  ever  given  by  any  of  the  rich  frequenters  of  the  bakery. 
Dinner  parties  (in  the  common  acceptation  of  the  word 
among  people  of  the  same  fortune)  are  unknown.  Even 
calls  on  each  other,  at  their  own  houses,  are  rare.  And 
this  is  from  no  intended  economy  of  time  or  money.  They 
lead  lives  of  ample  leisure,  and  are  as  liberal  and  cordial- 
hearted  a  set  of  people  as  any  in  the  world.  But  the 
restless  liquid,  society,  has  here  been  permitted  to  stand 
still,  and  this  (the  social  chemist  will  be  interested  to 
know)  is  the  natural  precipitate.  The  Ducal  Cascine  at 
Florence — that  centre  of  the  public  drive,  where  all  the 
equipages  of  the  fashionable  meet  and  stand  still  at  a  cer 
tain  hour — is  the  Chapman's  Bakery  of  the  Tuscan  court 
and  nobility  (only  that  they  differ  from  the  Newburgh 
aristocracy  in  wanting  balls  and  suppers  besides.)  The 
English  exclusives  need  a  Hyde  Park  for  a  comparison  of 


282  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE  WILD. 

equipages,  matinees  for  comparison  of  out-door  toilettes, 
and  dinner  parties  and  routs  for  exchange  of  ideas  and 
bettering  of  acquaintances — but  all  these  "  first  princi 
ples"  are  met  and  their  wants  supplied  by  Chapman's 
Bakery,  at  Newburgh.  Whether  the  bubbling  champagne 
of  fashionable  life  all  over  the  world,  would,  if  left  long 
enough  to  itself,  settle  down  into  the  same  small  modicum 
of  fulness  of  the  social  glass,  is — open  to  discussion. 

One  thing  should  be  taken  into  consideration,  perhaps, 
in  all  estimates  of  either  the  public  enterprise  or  sociality 
at  Xewburgh.  The  town  is,  in  fact,  at  the  end  of  a  long 
street  of  New  York.  Though  fifty  miles  from  the  city, 
the  railroad  runs  to  and  fro  constantly,  like  an  omnibus, 
and  a  large  proportion  of  the  well-off  class  transact  business 
and  have  their  circle  of  acquaintance  in  the  city,  though 
their  families  reside  here,  for  better  air,  and  for  fine 
houses  and  gardens  at  less  cost.  There  is  less  concentra 
tion,  therefore,  than  is  common  in  towns  of  the  same  size — 
less  pride  in  the  public  improvements,  and  less  dependence 
on  the  society  of  the  place.  The  core  of  what  would  be 
the  society,  under  ordinary  circumstances — the  Chapman's 
bakery  of  wealthy  and  well  descended  families — is  without 
the  usual  tributary  and  emulous  outer  circles.  In  the 
handsome  streets  of  comfortable  houses  and  tasteful  villas, 
on  the  upper  side  of  the  town,  the  residents  scarce  know 
each  other,  and  feel  no  interest  in  the  large  estates  of 


A      PLEASING     VARIETY.  283 

the  gentlemen  of  fortune  in  the  neighborhood.  The  far 
mers  who  bring  their  families  in,  to  trade  and  shop,  are 
again  another  public,  and  the  migratory  thousands  from 
the  city,  who  throng  the  Powelton  and  other  boarding- 
houses  in  the  summer,  are  still  another  ;  and  thus  New- 
burgh  has  scarcely  an  identity  of  its  own — the  Faubourg 
St.  Germain  of  Chapman's  Bakery  excepted. 

But  all  this  varied  population  makes  very  good  shops 
and  a  very  good  sidewalk.  To  go  to  Newburgh  is,  in 
fact,  a  digestible  meal  of  daily  food  for  curiosity,  compared 
with  the  glut  and  satiety  of  Broadway.  It  is  four  miles 
from  Idlewild,  a  most  convenient  distance  for  just  such  a 
variation  of  solitude  in  the  country — the  family  wagon 
which  bridges  between,  being  (to  the  children  and  ser 
vants)  our  golden  link  with  a  world  else  revolving  with 
out  us.  In  my  own  circuits  round,  by  the  mountain-roads, 
I  am  apt  to  come  home  by  the  way  of  JSTewburgh — my 
sweating  mare  cooling  her  legs  with  a  walk  through  the 
streets,  two  or  three  times  a  week,  at  least — and  I  con 
fess  to  its  pleasant  airing  of  my  gregariousness,  at  the 
same  time.  No,  I  should  not  like  to  have  Newburgh 
farther  off,  nor  nearer — though  I  pitched  my  tent  with 
out  the  thought  of  its  propinquity  as  a  neighbor.  Like 
the  moon  and  the  stars,  it  is  a  much-used  addition  to  our 
"extent  of  property,"  though  not  charged  among  the 
taxes. 


284  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE WILD. 


LETTER   XLIV. 

Personal  Experience  interesting  to  Invalids — Difficulty  as  to  Horseback  Exer 
cise — Advice  as  to  Winter-riding — Economies  in  Horse-owning — New  Idea  as 
to  Exposure — Philosophy  of  Exercise  to  Scholars,  &c.,  &c. 

January  28,  1854. 

I  HESITATED  much  before  committing  recently  to  print 
what  might  be  thought  but  the  button-holding  story  of 
an  invalid — knowing  well  that  the  Public  cannot  properly 
be  troubled  with  one's  personal  experience,  unless  it  adds 
to  knowledge  upon  points  of  common  interest — but,  by 
the  extensive  copying  and  comments  of  the  Press,  I  find 
that  my  record  of  the  results  of  horseback-exercise  in  all 
weathers  was  thought  noteworthy  ;  and  upon  this  I  can, 
perhaps,  throw  a  little  additional  light,  by  such  minuter 
details  of  experience   as   may  be   valuable   for  invalid 
guidance.     First,  let  me  give  a  corroborative  letter  from 
one  of  the  readers  of  this  paper  : — 

II  In  the  Home  Journal  of  10th  instant,  I  find  a  letter  from  «  An 
Invalid,'  with  your  answer.    I  am  induced  to  tell  my  story.    I 
have  been  on  the  invalid  list  for  twenty-five  years.    In  October, 
1834,  by  the  advice  of  my  physician,  I  prepared  to  remove  to  St. 


THE      HORSEBACK      REMEDY.  285 

Augustine,  Florida.  All  things  were  ready — my  strength  was  not 
sufficient  to  leave  for  a  few  days,  A  friend  had  just  been  elected 
Sheriff  of  this  county,  who  offered  me  a  situation  where  I  could 
spend  as  much  time  as  I  chose  on  horseback.  I  accepted  the 
offer.  The  first  six  months  were  spent  in  great  agony  ;  but  I  found 
my  strength  improving.  It  is  now  nineteen  years  since  I  com 
menced  the  Horseback  remedy  for  tubercular  consumption.  In. 
that  time  I  have  travelled  on  horseback  many  thousands  of  miles. 
I  have  now  my  business  so  arranged  that  I  am  compelled  to  ride 
sixteen  miles  each  day.  I  allow  no  state  of  the  weather  to  inter 
fere  with  the  ride,  as  I  am  always  prepared  with  proper  clothing 
to  resist  cold  or  wet.  My  health  is  now  good  ;  perhaps  no  man 
enjoys  better  health.  My  disease  was  and  is  tubercular  consump 
tion.  I  have  no  reason  to  think  that  the  tubercles  in  my  lungs 
will  ever  be  dispersed,  but  I  do  know  that  they  can  be  kept  in  a 
quiescent  state  by  proper  exercise  in  the  open  air.  With  this  in 
view,  I  shall  continue  the  use  of  the  saddle,  in  the  open  air,  whilst 
I  have  strength  to  do  it." 

This  is  a  stronger  case  than  my  own,  somewhat,  but  it 
is  the  more  confirmatory  of  my  impression  that  the 
unceasing  jolt  of  exercise  in  the  saddle  is  preventive  of 
any  chill  to  the  lungs,  from  cold  or  wet,  while  they  profit 
by  the  change  of  air — the  spirits  at  the  same  time 
enlivened  by  rapid  motion  and  the  perspiration  started 
and  kept  up  without  effort  or  fatigue.  That  a  fast  trot 
of  ten  or  twelve  miles  will  soothe  and  refresh  the  lungs, 
when  the  ascent  up  a  flight  of  stairs  will  irritate  and  set 
them  to  bleeding  is  a  certain  fact,  which  makes  the 


286  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE  WILD. 

unfatiguing  nature  of  saddle-exercise  a  point  of  some 
importance. 

But  a  gentleman,  who  writes  to  me  from  Maryland, 
mentions  a  difficulty.  He  says  : 

"  I  am  aware  bow  completely  your  time  must  be  occupied  by 
writing  and  reading  ;  but  should  you  be  able  to  catch  a  moment 
of  leisure,  I  shall  be  obliged  to  you  to  let  me  know  what  you 
think  the  warmest  and  most  protective  costume  for  a  horseman  in 
winter.  I  have  a  fine  Morgan  mare  which  I  rarely  back  on  account 
of  cold  toes  and  shivering  legs.  I  usually  prefer  pedestrianizing, 
though  there  are  seasons  of  the  year  when  my  horse  and  myself 
almost  form  a  Centaur." 

The  old  farmer's  remedy  for  "  cold  toes"  on  horseback 
is  to  hang  the  feet  out  of  the  stirrups  for  a  few  minutes 
—the  removal  of  the  pressure,  from  the  sole,  letting  the 
blood  flow  into  the  extremities  more  freely.  But,  as  per 
spiration  might  be  checked,  especially  when  going  against 
the  wind,  by  the  slower  pace  at  which  one  would  ride 
without  stirrups,  a  safer  remedy  for  the  invalid  would  be 
larger  boots  and  an  extra  pair  of  stockings.  There 
should  be  no  scrupulous  nicety,  in  fact,  in  the  "horse 
man's  costume"  for  a  cold  day.  Clothes  enough,  is 
the  simple  prescription.  The  woollen  leggius,  such  as 
are  worn  by  the  English  drover,  would  be  recommendable 
if  they  could  be  bought  in  this  country;  but  your  heaviest 
pair  of  pantaloons,  enlarged  two  inches  on  each  leg  by 


PROTECTION      FROM     COLD.  287 

strips  let  into  the  two  outside  seams,  and  drawn  on  over 
those  of  the  usual  wear,  answers  as  good,  or  better  pur 
pose.  A  shoe-stirrup  can  be  bought  of  Bull  the  saddler 
in  New  York,  which  shelters  the  feet  from  the  wind. 
And  there  is  a  short  cloak  called  a  "  Talma,"  which  you 
can  buy,  at  present,  at  the  ready-made-clothing  stores  in 
New  York  (a  most  classical  and  beautiful  garment  which 
cheap  Fashion  for  the  Many  has  chanced  to  stumble 
upon),  which  is  exactly  suited  to  the  wants  of  the  horse 
man.  The  half-sleeve  gives  the  arm  play,  while  it  pro 
tects  it,  and  the  ample  but  short  folds  just  come  to  the 
saddle. 

Cold,  however,  was  never  a  trouble  of  mine  on  horse 
back,  even  with  the  thermometer  at  winter's  lowest.  The 
sharp  air  may  have  a  chance  at  the  lungs,  perhaps,  in 
getting  mounted  and  started  ;  but  Dr.  Hall's  excellent 
hint  to  delicate  persons  going  from  a  hot  concert-room 
into  the  night-air — "  keep  the  mouth  shut,  and  breathe 
only  through  the  nostrils  " — is  an  effectual  guard  for  these 
two  or  three  minutes.  After  that,  the  motion  gives 
warmth  enough — only  there  should  be  no  slow  riding,  and 
it  should  not  be  a  horse  with  a  rocking-chair  canter  or  a 
shambling  rack.  A  fast  and  even  trot — of  the  jolt  of 
which,  by  rising  in  the  stirrup,  you  take  as  much  or  as 
little  as  you  please — is  the  best  pace  for  keeping  the 
whole  body  warm  ;  while  (an  anatomical  double-action 


288  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE  WILD. 

which  the  doctors  may  explain  in  learned  words)  it  both 
wakes  up  the  lazy  liver  and  lulls  to  rest  the  cough-weary 
lungs.  Oh  the  blessed  let-up — the  soothing  intermission 
— the  merciful  stop-at-last  of  a  fast  trot,  after  a  long  night 
with  a  cough  unappeasable  !  A  triple  blessing,  indeed — 
for  the  rested  and  braced  invalid  comes  home  with  a  well 
man's  appetite. 

There  is  one  other  horse  view  of  the  subject,  upon  which 
I  may  say  an  instructive  word.  Pulmonary  patients  are 
apt  to  be  poor  men — clergymen,  students,  authors,  school 
masters,  bookkeepers — and  a  daily  ride  is  an  expensive 
prescription.  As  a  friend  said  to  me,  "  you  speak,  in  your 
letter  to  invalids,  of  a  fifty  dollar  horse  fed  for  thirty 
cents  a  day,  but  no  tolerable  horse  can  be  bought  in  the 
city  for  less  than  three  times  the  money,  and  the  '  keep' 
is  five  dollars  a  week." 

With  city  expensiveness  in  luxuries  one  cannot  very 
well  argue,  it  is  true.  The  invalid  with  slender  means 
should,  for  that  and  other  reasons,  go  to  the  country. 
But  there  is  a  burthensome  superfluity  next  door  to  this 
burthensome  want,  in  cities,  and  it  seems  a  pity  that  the 
two  should  not  be  brought  together.  The  stables  of  the 
wealthy  are  fall  of  horses  fretting  in  the  stall  for  want  of 
exercise.  Even  those  which  go  out  every  afternoon  for 
a  short  drive,  would  be  in  better  condition  and  more 
manageable,  if  ridden  eight  or  ten  miles  in  the  morning. 


THE      COST      OF      A      HORSE.  289 

Now,  why  should  not  America  have  its  republican  liberal 
ization  of  the  courtesies  between  wealth  and  intellect  ? 
The  clergyman  or  the  poor  scholar  in  Europe  feels  no 
scruple  of  delicacy  at  borrowing  a  leak  from  the  rich 
man's  library.  Might  we  not  en'arge  the  limits  of  inde 
pendent  reciprocity  so  that  the  American  clergyman  or 
poor  scholar  may  feel  no  scruple  of  delicacy  at  borrowing 
a  horse  from  the  rich  man's  stable  ?  There  are  few  intel 
lectual  consumptives  who  have  not  some  friend  with  this 
superfluity  of  cure  for  consumption.  It  might  easily 
become  an  incumbent  courtesy,  for  the  owners  of  fine 
horses,  to  inquire  whether  their  clergyman,  or  the  instruct 
or  of  their  children,  or  some  favorite  author  of  their 
acquaintance,  would  not  be  kindly  benefited  by  the  spare 
use  of  these  costly  belongings. 

My  friend's  disparagement  of  my  price,  of  an  invalid's 
horse  ("  fifty  dollars")  prompts  me  to  turn  over  my  expe 
rience,  and  I  think  I  may,  perhaps,  give  a  hint  or  two 
upon  this  point,  that  will  be  useful  to  the  country-resident 
portion  at  least  of  the  un-practical  class,  at  whose  needs 
my  remarks  are  aiming. 

As  a  luxury,  ownership  in  a  horse  varies  with  a  man's 
means.  At  a  cost  above  what  he  can  afford  to  lose,  it 
becomes  a  care  and  an  anxiety — the  intellectual  invalid, 
of  course,  having  those  already  overtasked  powers  of 
attention,  to  which  any  additional  trifle  to  be  nervous 

13 


290  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE  WILD. 

about  is  a  double  evil.  With  the  liability  of  these  domes 
tic  favorites  to  disease  and  accident,  it  is,  at  best,  but 
skittish  property.  To  be  only  a  comfort,  it  should  be  a 
horse  that  is  old  and  sagacious  enough  to  know  what  is 
good  for  him — a  horse  not  too  valuable  to  lend — a  horse 
that  can  work  in  the  farmer's  team,  when,  from  illness,  or 
absence,  or  interruption,  you  cannot  exercise  him  your 
self.  It  need  not  be  a  poor  horse,  with  all  this.  It  may 
be  the  remainder  of  a  good  horse.  And  there  is  a  large 
number  of  this  class  of  animals  always  for  sale  at  low 
prices — just  enough  left  in  them  for  an  invalid's  using. 
With  good  feed,  slight  and  regular  work,  and  kind  care, 
the  overworked  creature  soon  recovers  spirit  and  looks, 
and  though  severe  usage  again  would  immediately  break 
him  clown  (as  the  farmer  or  jockey  knows  who  sells  him 
to  you),  he  will  be  as  lively  and  handsome  in  your  keep 
ing  for  years,  as  one  of  four  times  the  value,  and  much 
less  liable  than  a  younger  horse  to  disease  or  accident. 
Give  one  of  your  shrewd  Yankee  neighbors  the  "  fifty 
dollars,"  tell  him  exactly  how  much  of  a  horse  you  want, 
and  ask  him  to  make  the  purchase  for  you. 

My  own  winter-riding  has  lately  been  valuably  varied 
by  the  encouragement  to  an  important  freedom  as  to  its 
time,  suggested  by  a  chance  remark  in  a  medical  essay. 
The  day,  at  its  summer  length,  being  much  too  short  for 
my  daylight  avocations  at  Idlewild,  and  not  half  long 


HINTS     AS     TO     EXERCISE.  291 

enough  in  winter,  I  had  found  the  passing  of  two  or  three 
of  its  best  hours  in  the  saddle  (for  exercise  only,  and 
with  such  inexorable  punctuality  in  all  weathers)  a  consi 
derable  tax.  My  eyes,  which  were  long  ago  unfitted  for 
lamp-light  work,  were,  besides,  blinded  sometimes  by  the 
brilliancy  of  the  sunshine  on  the  snow.  Winter  nights 
being  also  less  windy  than  winter  days,  and  the  roads 
frozen  harder  and  drier,  I  had  often  wished  that  night- 
air  were  not  so  emphatically  tabooed  by  the  Doctors 

this  taboo  preventing  my  day  from  being  three  hours 
longer  and  my  ride  from  being  cleaner  and  less  of  a  battle 
with  gusty  winds  and  dazzling  S110W.  Thus,  ready  for  wis 
dom,  if  it  should  fall  in  my  way,  I  stumbled  upon  the  fol 
lowing  remarks  by  a  medical  man,  upon  air  and  exercise  : 

"Avoiding  out-door  air  for  the  hour  about  sunrise  or  sunset, 
there  is  no  danger  even  to  invalids,  in  exercising  in  the  NIGHT- 
AIR,  if  the  exercise  be  sufficiently  vigorous  to  keep  off  a  feeling 
of  chilliness.  Tliis  should  be  the  rule  in  all  forms  of  out-door 
exercise,  and  is  an  infallible  preventive,  as  far  as  my  experience 
extends,  against  taking  cold  in  any  and  all  weathers,  provided  it 
be  not  continued  to  over-exhaustion  or  decided  fatigue.  Such 
exercise  can  never  give  a  cold,  whether  in  rain,  or  sleet,  or 
snow,  unless  there  be  some  rare  peculiarity  in  the  constitution. 
It  is  the  conduct  after  exercise  which  gives  the  cold — the  getting 
cool  too  quickly— by  standing  or  sitting  still  in  a  draft  of  air.  or 
at  an  open  window,  or  in  a  cold  room.  The  only  precaution 
needed  is  to  end  the  exercise  in  a  warm  room,  and  there  remain 


292  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE  WILD. 

until  rested  and  no  moisture  remains  on  the  skin.  *  *  * 
With  the  above  precaution  you  need  not  be  afraid  of  out-door 
air,  XIGUT  OR  DAY,  as  long  as  you  are  in  motion  sufficient  to  keep 
off  a  feeling  of  chilliness.  *  *  *  Confinement  to  the 
regulated  temperature  of  a  room,  in  any  latitude,  is  certain  death, 
if  persevered  in.  *  *  *  The  great  object  is,  useful, 
agreeable,  profitable  employment,  in  the  open  air,  for  several  hours 
every  day,  rain  or  shine,  hot  or  cold  ;  and  whoever  has  the  deter 
mination  and  energy  sufficient  to  accomplish  this,  will  seldom  fail 
to  delight  himself  and  his  friends  with  speedy  and  permanent  re 
sults.  *  *  *  If  working  or  walking  cause  actual 
fatigue,  then  horseback  exercise  is  the  best  for  both  sexes." 

* 

The  prisoners  to  the  desk,  to  the  study,  to  the  school 
room — too  busy  all  day  to  exercise,  and  afraid  of  night-tix 
upon  the  lungs — will  see  a  ray  of  bright  comfort  in  this 
extract,  I  am  very  sure.  It  is  a  channel  between  their 
Scylla  and  Charybdis.  And  there  is  an  incidental  advan 
tage  and  luxury  in  "  air  and  exercise  "  the  last  thing  before 
sleeping — it  stretches  the  limbs,  and  quiets  the  nerves,  and 
cools  the  brain,  and  so  performs  that  invisible  and  inward 
undressing  for  sleep,  of  which  the  outward  undressing  is 
often  such  a  weary  incompleteness.  There  are  those,  too, 
who  are  fatigued  through  the  day  with  the  sight  of  peo 
ple,  and  who  need  utter  solitude  with  their  exercise — no 
lookers-on  except  the  uncatechizing,  un-greeting,  un- 
scrutinizing  stars.  To  others,  the  poetry  of  this  pulse- 
quickened  and  heart-glowing  companionship  with  beautiful 


NIGHT      EXERCISE.  293 

Nio-ht earth  and  its  wintry  unsightliness  made  indistinct, 

and  heaven  in  its  unblemished  breadth  all  brightened— 
will  be  balm  to  the  soul,  taken  in  with  health  for  the 
body.  It  will  be  understood,  I  suppose,  that  I  speak  of 
this  only  as  a  variety  in  exercise,  to  be  used  with  care 
and  discretion.  I  have  supposed  an  invalid  who  could 
saddle  his  own  horse,  at  starting  in  an  unseasonable  hour, 
and  stall  and  blanket  him  on  his  return.  And  I  have 
supposed  a  short,  quick  ride,  upon  a  road  familiar  to  the 
horse  and  his  rider.  To  those  who  walk,  only,  however, 
for  exercise,  there  are  fewer  difficulties  ;  and  to  such  it 
will  be  even  more  a  relief  to  know  that  there  is  medicine 
in  night  as  well  as  in  day. 


294  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE  WILD. 


LETTER   XLY. 

Snow  and  its  Uses — Winter  View  of  Grounds,  as  to  Improvements — Old  Women's 
Weather-Prophecy — Finding  of  an  Indian  God  in  the  Glen — Idlewild  a  Sanc 
tuary  of  Deities  of  the  Weather — Name  of  Moodna,  &c.,  &c. 

February  4,  1854. 

A  LIGHT  fall  of  snow  is  a  wonderful  generalizer.  It 
docs  for  scenery  what  the  shroud  does  for  the  memory  of 
a  friend — not  only  concealing  defects,  but  showing  capa 
bilities  scarce  dreamed  of  when  every  trifle  was  in  sight 
— revealing,  to  our  surprise,  sometimes,  how  near  perfec 
tion  it  was,  after  all,  when  we  were  despairing  over  its 
little  blemishes  and  irregularities.  Those  who  have 
"grounds"  to  improve,  should  not  lose  the  winter  oppor 
tunity  of  seeing  them  covered  with  an  uncut  snow-sward. 
The  rough  field,  the  bare  rock,  the  accidental  or  irregular 
path  does  not  then  prevent  the  eye  from  taking  in,  at  a 
glance,  the  natural  expression  of  the  spot  ;  while  the 
lawn  of  unbroken  whiteness  throws  into  strong  relief 
every  clump  of  shrubs  and  every  grove  and  tree — the 
slopes  and  curves  also  showing  of  what  combinations  they 
are  capable,  and  so  suggesting  improvements  necessary 


WEATHER -PROPHECY.  295 

for  the  desired  ane-ness  of  effect.  To  "buy  a  place,"  mid 
winter,  after  a  light  snow,  is  a  better  time  than  midsum 
mer.  The  leafless  trees  reveal  to  you,  then,  what  views 
may  be  cut  through.  You  see  what  the  foliage  happily 
hides,  and  where  it  hides  too  much.  And  then — (like 
the  more  comfortable  confidence  after  seeing  a  sweetheart 
in  dishabille) — the  sight  of  your  landscape-passion  in 
winter  makes  you  feel  that  you  know  what  you  are 
loving,  in  the  after-pride  and  glory  of  summer. 

"The  winter  weather,"  say  the  old  women,  "will  be 
mostly  woven  according  to  the  threads  of  the  first  three 
days."  And  thus  far  it  has  proved  true.  The  first  of 
December  was  fair  and  mild — so  was  the  general  weather 
of  December,  winter's  first  month.  The  second  was  mild 
and  changeable — so  has  been  January,  the  second  month, 
thus  far.  The  third  was  bitterly  cold — and  so  will  be 
February,  the  third  month,  if  the  oracle  hold  good.  We 
have  had  but  three  or  four  days  of  sleighing,  up  to  the 
present  one  day's  blanketing  of  the  fields  (January  22 ), 
and,  for  six  or  eight  days  near  the  middle  of  this 
wintriest  month,  the  hills  and  meadows  have  slept  quite 
bare  in  autumnal  sunshine.  I  scarce  know  whether  to 
wish  for  more  snow  or  less.  It  perceptibly  enlivens  the 
spirits  of  country-people — partly  from  the  exhilarating 
atmosphere  it  brings,  and  partly  from  the  variety  that  it 
makes,  in  vehicles  and  occupations — but  they  rejoice  as 


296  LETTERS     FROM     IDLE WILD. 

much  when  it  goes  as  when  it  comes.  The  air  of  our 
climate,  complained  of  as  too  dry,  is  agreeably  moistened 
by  it,  the  snow  air  being  commonly  said  to  be  pleasant  to 
the  skin.  The  worst  inconvenience  of  snow,  to  me,  is  the 
ball  that  it  makes  in  the  horse's  foot,  and  the  consequent 
irregularity  and  uncertainty  of  his  gait  under  the  saddle. 
"  Grease  the  frog/'  say  the  farmers,  but  that  lasts  only  a 
mile  or  two.  With  fast  riding  it  soon  sponges  out,  and 
then,  with  a  ball  in  the  foot  and  a  man's  weight  on  the 
back,  the  most  active  horse  runs  great  risk  of  a  sprained 
ankle.  Without  the  refuge  of  blue  spectacles,  the 
dazzling  glare  of  the  sunshine  on  snow  would  make 
prisoners  of  the  weak-eyed  classes  in  sleighing-time, 
though  Nature  has  perhaps  provided  against  this  evil  by 
making  it  short  of  stay,  or  changeable  in  color  where  it 
is  perpetual.  It  grows  red  in  the  Alps.  "Ipsa  nix  vetus- 
tate  rulestit."* 

We  were  fortunate  enough  to  identify,  yesterday,  a 
mysterious  inmate  of  Idlewild  who  has  been  the  subject 
of  a  great  deal  of  discussion.  In  taking  advantage  of  a 
drought  to  clear  away  the  loose  rocks  and  enlarge  the 
small  lake  in  the  depths  of  the  glen,  summer  before  last, 
the  ox-drag  turned  up  something  which  immediately 

*  Saussure  observed  red  snow  on  the  Bevern  in  1760,  and  on  St.  Bernard  in 
1788.  Ramond  met  with  it  in  the  Pyrenees,  Captain  Ross  in  Baffin's  Bay; 
Parry,  Franklin  and  Scorcsby  collected  it  in  still  higher  northern  latitudes. 


THE      UNKNOWN      RELIC.  291 

attracted  the  curiosity  of  the  men.  One  of  them  lifted 
it  up  to  me,  as' I  stood  011  the  bank — to  all  appearance,  a 
spirited  bust,  carved  in  gray  rock.  Whatever  it  was,  I 
had  seen  many  worse  likenesses  of  mankind,  and  there 
had  evidently  been  great  pains  in  the  cutting  of  it.  The 
crown  of  the  head  was  broken  off,  but  the  lower  part  of 
the  face  remained,  and  the  neck  and  shoulders,  and  the 
fold  of  the  drapery  across  the  breast,  were  still  complete. 
The  design  was  that  of  a  head  turned  aside  with  a  look 
of  aroused  attention  ;  and  to  me  it  seemed  exceedingly 
expressive  and  well  conceived.  It  has  since  been  our 
principal  investment  of  Barnurn,  but  among  those  who 
were  called  upon  to  wonder  at  it,  of  course  there  were 
unbelievers.  Some  said  it  was  cut  for  a  fishing  anchor 
to  a  canoe — some  that  it  was  a  two-handed  pestle  to 
grind  corn.  A  stone  tomahawk  and  other  Indian  relics 
had  been  found  in  the  glen,  however,  and,  with  these,  it 
was  carefully  preserved  as  an  aboriginal  antiquity. 
Placed  on  the  mantel-piece  in  the  library,  between 
Petrarch  and  Tasso,  it  was  treated  with  respect,  at  least, 
till  our  friends  and  neighbors  had  all  given  an  opinion 
upon  it.  Latterly,  I  grieve  to  say,  it  has  been  used  to 
crown  the  upper  shelf  of  the  hat-stand  in  the  hall  ; 
and,  being  a  little  smaller  than  the  heads  of  most  of 
our  visiters,  the  spirited  chin  has  daily  been  the  drop 
ping  limit  of  hat-rims — apparently  a  disrespectful  likeness 

13* 


298  LETTERS      FROM     IDLE  WILD. 

of  a  gentleman  with  his  tile  smashed  over  his  nose  and 
eyes. 

But,  yesterday,  our  friend  Copway,  the  Ojibbeway 
chief,  took  us  in  his  way  on  a  lecturing  excursion  through 
the  neighborhood  ;  and,  in  passing  through  the  hall,  he 
stopped,  surprised,  before  the  nameless  bust  on  the  hat- 
stand.  "  What  !"  he  said,  "  you  have  an  Indian  god, 
there  !"  He  looked  at  it  a  little  closer,  as  I  told  him 
how  we  had  found  it.  "  It  is  the  god  of  The  Winds  and 
the  Birds" — he  continued — "  Mesa-ba-wa-sin."  He  then 
explained  to  us  that  there  were  five  Indian  deities  : — the 
gods  of  War,  of  Hunting,  of  Medicine,  of  Fishes,  and 
of  Winds  and  Birds.  They  had  their  particular  shapes  ; 
and  their  images  carved  in  stone,  were  usually  hidden 
away  in  the  most  secluded  places  where  offerings  could  be 
carried  to  them  and  securely  left  ;  and  it  was  easy  to 
understand,  he  thought,  why  one  should  have  been  found 
in  so  wild  a  fastness  as  our  almost  inaccessible  glen.  And 
so  was  solved  the  mystery  of  Idlewild  !  It  was  the  sanc 
tuary  of  the  god  of  the  Winds  and  the  Birds — the  nearest 
mountain  (which  I  had  instinctively  named  the  Storm- 
King)  being  his  Vicegerent  upon  the  cloud-compelling 
throne,  and  the  multitude  of  birds,  for  which  our  ravine 
is  famous  being  his  winged  priesthood— whom  (happily) 
I  have  chanced  vigilantly  to  protect,  with  a  love  for  their 
beauty  and  their  singing.  Of  late,  by  the  way,  the 


AN      ABIDING      MONUMENT.  299 

miserere  of  the  night-owl  has  been  unusually  frequent  and 
prolonged  in  the  precipitous  hemlock  grove  under  nay 
window  ;  and  the  iron  crosses  have  been  blown,  in  a 
whirlwind,  from  the  Gothic  points  of  the  roof  of  our 
Highland  Chapel.  I  gave  a  vague  look  at  Mesa-ba-wa- 
sin,  as  I  remembered  these  precedents  of  his  recognition. 
He  shall  be  duly  honored  with  a  fitting  place  and  a  pedes 
tal  ;  and  his  storm-ushers,  his  priesthood  of  birds,  shall 
be  reverently  looked  upon— those  as  they  pass  in  their 
robes  of  cloud,  and  these  as  they  sing  on  their  swift  ser 
vice  with  their  bright  colors  and  shapes  of  beauty. 

But  our  neighborhood  deserves  the  smile  of  Mesa-ba- 
wa-sin.     We  have  just  commemorated  an  act  of  Indian 
heroism  by  naming  a  village  and  a  post-office  after  Mood- 
na— the  chief  who  gave  his  life  to  save  the  white  woman 
from  the  tomahawk.      There  is  no  monument,  after  all, 
like  a  word  that  will  be  often  repeated.     The  old  sachem, 
as  he  rose  from  his  seat  in  the  council  and  stepped  for 
ward  to  receive  the   blow  for    her,  who   was  meeting 
death  to  be  grateful  and  true  to  him,  lit  a  fame-star  on 
the  spot  where  he  stood.      It  should  burn,  and  the  spot 
be  known  by  its  light  and  by  his  name,  while  the  world 
stands  ;  and  so  it  will  be,  now— his  noble  deed  better 
commemorated  by  this  baptism  of  perpetual  repetition  than 
it  could  have  been  by  the  costliest  column  of  marble. 
We  have   a  busy  neighbor   in   this   little  village  of 


300         LETTERS   FROM  IDLEWILD. 

Moodna.  Hidden  away  as  it  is,  in  a  deep-down  crook  of 
the  swift  tributary  to  the  Hudson — out  of  sight  from  the 
main  thoroughfare  of  travel  and  from  the  eminences  of 
the  country  around — it  is  nobly  watered  for  its  mills,  and 
kept  under  a  thriving  headway  of  prosperity  by  industry 
and  enterprise.  The  cotton  factory  of  the  Leonards,  a 
large  machine-forge,  and  the  spacious  paper-mill  of 
Carson  and  Ide,  employ  a  stirring  population  of  two  or 
three  hundred  operatives — their  bells  at  morning  and 
noon,  their  nickering  lights  by  night,  their  playing  child 
ren  and  familiar  faces  on  the  road,  all  combining  to 
make  a  spot  of  lively  variation,  in  a  part  of  the  country 
otherwise  secludedly  and  only  agricultural.  It  is  a  covert 
picture  of  life,  if  you  like  to  go  to  it.  And,  for  those 
who  are  interested  in  the  maze  of  ingenuity  and  industry 
which  turns  rags  into  those  beautiful  fabrics  that  receive 
our  thoughts,  the  Moodna  paper-mill  would  be  a  resort 
of  no  little  interest  and  curiosity.  We  are  pleased  to 
know,  that,  from  the  next  glen  above  us,  are  always  going 
loads  of  the  fairest  of  every  variety  of  note  and  letter 
paper,  (sixteen  hundred  pounds  a  day,  the  makers  tell 
me),  and,  as  they  are  about  to  add  to  their  extensive 
works,  with  the  increasing  demand  for  it,  we  shall  soon 
find  our  letters  to  be  but  return-birds — Moodna  paper 
coming  home  to  roost,  with  the  messages  it  has  picked 
up  in  its  flight. 


LECTURES A      PLEASANT      NOVELTY.  801 

In  the  rural  village  of  Canterbury,  a  mile  or  more  on 
the  other  side  of  Idlewild,  we  have  lately  had  a  beginning 
of  more  life.  Copway  lectured  successfully  to  an  audience 
of  a  couple  of  hundred,  exciting  great  interest  for  the 
remnants  of  his  people.  And  Clarence  Cook  comes  to 
morrow,  to  give  the  same  audience  a  lecture  on  his 
passion-theme  of  "  Gardens."  "We  hope  yet,  as  a 
neighborhood,  to  be  a  regular  customer  for  the  thought- 
market  of  the  Lecturer.  It  is  a  delightful  novelty — this 
coming  of  a  load  of  thought  upon  one  subject,  to  be 
given  to  a  whole  community  at  once,  exacting  a  sympathy 
in  knowledge,  and  socially  promoting  its  spread  and  value, 
as  single  and  different  books,  read  by  individuals  at  home, 
never  could. 


302  LETTERS      FROM      IDLEWILD. 


LETTER  XLYI. 

Hudson  Frozen  Solid — Boata  on  Runners — Water-lilies — Indian  Legend,  and 
Poem  on  it  by  a  Friend — Philosophy  of  naming  Streams  hereabouts — Angola 
and  its  Epidemic — Story  of  Smart  Boy,  &c.,  &c. 

February  11,  1854. 

THE  Hudson  is  frozen  solid,  from  the  Storm-King's 
foot  to  Danskimmer,  but  the  ice  seems  rather  to  acce 
lerate  than  hinder  navigation.  A  sail-boat  upon  three 
•  runners — the  hinder  one  rigged  upon  a  piviot,  and  operat 
ing  as  a  most  effectual  rudder — has  been  flying  over  the 
ice  to-day  with  a  velocity  quite  marvellous,  and  tacking 
and  rounding-to  so  gracefully  and  instantaneously  that  it 
is  a  pity  it  can  only  be  done  when  the  swallows  are  at 
the  South — their  preeminence  at  a  short  turn  being  a 
nose  out  of  joint,  just  now,  for  this  neighborhood.  From 
the  distance  of  the  shore,  the  runners  are  invisible,  and 
the  flying  craft  looks  like  an  ordinary  boat  ;  while  its 
unnatural  speed  and  the  tangle  of  horses  and  sleighs 
through  which  it  zigzags,  in  the  thoroughfare  between 
Fishkill  and  Newburgh,  makes  a  strange  confusion  of 
sails  and  trotting  horses,  to  an  unaccustomed  eye.  With 


STORY      OF      THE      LOTUS.  303 

locomotives  passing  continually  on  both  sides  of  the  river, 
and  the  multitudes  of  skaters  in  every  direction,  velocity 
of  all  kinds  seems  easy  enough. 

The  first  of  February  is  the  spoke  of  the  Year's  wheel 
of  Seasons  that  leans  towards  Spring  ;  and,  in  the  coun 
try,  we  are  already  contriving  for  the  softer  months  we 
shall  now  drop  upon  in  succession.  Among  the  things  to 
be  done,  we  have  not  forgotten  the  water-lilies  to  be 
anchored  in  Idlewild  brook — the  seeds  of  which  were 
kindly  sent  us  by  one  of  our  fair  parishioners  at  the 
South.  They  shall  have  their  safe  corner  out  of  the 
freshet  path.  And  our  nameless  friend,  by  the  way,  will 
not  be  sorry  to  know  that  we  have  a  new  poetry  for  the 
lotus.  When  Copway,  our  Ojibbeway  friend  was  here,  a 
day  or  two  ago,  he  told  the  children  an  Indian  legend  of 
the  water-lily — how  it  came  to  earth — heavenly  flower 
that  it  is.  One  of  our  fair  neighbors,  who  chanced  to 
be  a  listener,  thus  rendered  the  beautiful  story  into  verse  . 

A  star  looked  down  from  its  glowing  throne, 

In  the  azure-vaulted  sky, 
And  said,  "  I  am  weary  here  all  alone, 

Doing  nought  but  throb  and  sigh. 

"  Far  down  in  the  valleys  of  earth,  I  see 

The  red-men's  children  at  play — 
The  innocent  sound  of  their  careless  glee 
Rises  faint  on  the  air  all  day. 


304  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE WILD. 

"I  will  speak  to  the  braves  at  their  council  fire, 

And  ask  them  to  let  me  dwell 
Where  earthly  love  may  warm  my  heart, 
With  its  human,  holy  spell.'' 

So  they  told  the  star  she  might  come  at  night, 
When  the  wood  and  the  wigwam  were  still, 

And  sit  on  the  mountain,  and  throw  her  light 
Through  the  vale  and  along  the  hill. 

She  came,  all  trembling,  but,  when  the  morn 
Woke  the  birds  and  the  children  again, 

The  star  sat  grieving  and  all  forlorn, 
For  she  knew  that  her  hope  was  vain. 

"  Not  near  enough  yet !    I  can  hear  and  see 

The  red-men's  children  at  play, 
But  they  waste  neither  wish  nor  thought  on  me, 
From  morn  till  the  close  of  day!" 

Then  they  bade  her  alight  on  the  tree-top  old, 
That  lulled  them  to  sleep  with  its  song  ; 

And  she  rocked  and  wailed,  and  shivered  with  cold, 
Impatient  the  whole  night  long. 

At  length  the  children  awoke  once  more, 

And  they  heard  the  pine-tree  sigh, 
But  took  no  heed  of  the  watching  star 

Between  them  and  the  sky. 


SHORT  NAMES  FOR  LONG  CREEKS.    305 

She  saw  them  skimming,  in  light  canoe, 

0?er  the  lovely  lake  below  ; 
But  the  longing  that  hourly  tenderer  grew, 

How  could  she  make  them  know  ? 

She  pondered  another  night  away, 

And  at  length  when  morning  brake, 
She  dropped  from  her  height,  with  a  hopeless  plunge,     . 

And  sank  in  the  silver  lake. 

The  star  was  shivered !    But  every  ray 

Was  caught  by  a  faithful  wave  ! 
Each  scintillant  beam  grew  a  snowy  flower, 

Where  she  thought  to  find  a  grave ! 

Ind  when  the  red  maiden,  in  birch  canoe, 

Seeks  lilies  for  bosom  and  brow, 
The  star  is  content,  for  she  softly  says, 
"  I  have  conquered  !     Tliey  love  me  now  /" 


The  hostility,  in  this  part  of  the  country,  to  names  of 
long  descent,  makes  rather  uncertain  wedlock  for  the  lilies. 
The  streams  to  which  these  Southern  nymphs  come  to  be 
wedded,  are  scarce  known  by  the  same  name,  for  any 
two  consecutive  miles.  Our  large  "  creek"  (larger  than 
the  Avon),  for  instance,  is  known  as  the  Moodna,  for  a 
mile  or  more  from  its  junction  with  the  Hudson.  It  then 
begins  to  take  the  names  of  the  different  farmers  through 
whose  lands  it  successively  passes.  The  main  branch 


306  LETTERS      FROM      IDLEWILD. 

comes  down  for  eight  or  ten  miles  through  what  is  called 
"  The  Clove  " — (the  main  valley-pass,  in  our  amphitheatre 
of  mountains,  toward  the  South) — and,  all  along  this 
beautiful  valley,  it  has  as  many  names  as  there  are  dwell 
ers  on  its  banks.  It  is  "Smith's  Creek,"  "Townsend's 
Creek,"  "  Sawyer's  Creek,"  "  Cox's  Creek,"  etc.,  etc.— 
ending  only  with  the  name  of  the  brave  old  chief  Moodna  ; 
although  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  his  heroic  memory  will,  in 
time,  send  that  name  up  stream,  as  great  deeds  usually  do, 
imprinting  it  on  all  that  flows  from  the  same  sources. 

"  The  Clove  "  has  a  curious  local  celebrity.  Its  main 
township,  Angola,  is  famous  for  the  number  of  inhabitants 
who  have  hanged  themselves.  As  the  population  is 
strictly  agricultural — a  class  certainly  not  addicted  to  ex 
cess  of  imagination — and  the  cases  have  been  invariably 
of  mediocre  persons,  "  doing  pretty  well,"  and  with  no 
special  unhappiness  on  hand,  the  suicides  have  been  diffi 
cult  to  account  for.  It  is  only  the  English  who  hang 
"from  weariness  of  buttoning  and  un-buttoning."  My 
friend  the  blacksmith,  by  the  way,  showed  me  a  grave 
yard  on  the  hill-side,  in  our  trip  through  the  Clove,  the 
other  day,  and  told  me  a  story  which  would  show  that 
imagination  may  grow  wild,  hereabouts.  They  were 
burying  a  man,  during  the  revolutionary  war,  and  were 
just  sliding  the  coffin  into  the  grave,  when  one  of  the 
mourners  gave  the  alarm  of  a  "red-coat"  concealed 


REVOLUTIONARY   ANECDOTE.       307 

among  the  bushes.  Down  went  the  dead  man,  and  was 
left  standing  on  end  while  the  " funeral77  took  to  its  heels 
— returning  no  more  to  the  grave-yard  for  that  afternoon. 
But,  the  next  morning,  there  was  some  careful  reconnoi- 
tering  by  the  relatives,  and,  after  some  trouble,  and  a  nar 
row  escape  of  a  new  alarm,  the  red-coat  turned  out  to 
be  a  sassafras-bush — the  scarlet  berries  having  loomed 
up  rather  bright,  with  the  sun7s  breaking  out,  just  then. 

Dull-witted,  the  people  of  this  region  certainly  are  not, 
if  one  may  judge  by  their  children.  A  little  way  back 
among  the  hills,  we  had  ridden  up  to  a  very  secluded 
farm-house  ;  and,  while  my  friend  was  making  some  in- 
quiry,  I  opened  conversation  with  a  little  puny-looking 
chap,  of  eight  or  ten  years  of  age,  who  sat  astride  a  log, 
disembowelling  a  grey  squirrel.  A  younger  sister  sat  also 
astride  the  log,  facing  him,  and  a  still  younger  one  looked 
on  from  a  little  distance.  As  he  took  no  notice  of  our  ap 
proach,  but  went  on,  spreading  the  skin  out,  to  nail  it  to 
the  log,  I  was  compelled  to  force  myself  upon  his  polite 
attention. 

"  Where  did  you  get  that  squirrel,  my  boy  ?77 

"  Shot  him,77  he  said  without  looking  up. 

"Yourself?77 

"  Myself.77 

"  And  what  are  you  going  to  do  with  the  skin  ?" 

"  Nothing.77 


308  LETTERS      FROM      IDLEWILD. 

"But,"  said  I,  "  why  not  make  a  fur  glove  of  it? 
There  are  four  legs  for  your  four  fingers,  and  then  you 
can  run  your  thumb  out  at  the  mouth  and  use  those  little 
teeth  to  scratch  your  head  with." 

The  boy  quietly  puckered  up  his  little  mouth,  and  cocked 
his  eyes  sharply  up  to  me,  as  I  sat  over  his  head  on  horse 
back. 

"  Suppose,"  said  he,  "  that  you  just  come  and  scratch 
your  head  with  it  first  !" 

By  the  hearty  laugh  of  my  friend  the  blacksmith,  I 
saw  that  I  was  not  as  triumphantly  facetious  as  I  had 
expected. 

But  it  is  only  where  hickory-trees  grow,  that  a  boy  of 
eight  or  nine  years  of  age,  who  does  not  see  a  stranger 
once  a  year,  would  think  of  measuring  wit  with  any  stray 
horseman  who  might  try  to  crack  a  joke  upon  him-. 


THE      BOY -TEAMSTER.  309 


LETTER  XLVII. 

Boy-Teamster— Our  Republic's  worst-treated  Citizen— Boy  Condition  in  the 
Country— Our  Neighborhood  suited  to  Boy-Education  in  Farming— Vicinity  of 
New  York  Market— Boy-Labor  and  Boy-Slavery—City  Parents  and  their  Dis 
posal  of  Boys— Gardening  Profits,  &c.,  &c. 

March  4, 1854. 

HAVING  bespoken  some  chestnut  post-logs,  a  while  ago, 
from  a  farmer  in  the  mountains,  I  found  them  duly 
delivered  on  the  different  spots  as  directed  ;  but  it  was 
not  till  the  last  of  the  eight  or  ten  loads,  that  I  chanced 
to  see  the  teamster.  He  was  throwing  off  the  heavy 
sticks  and  laying  them  in  a  neat  pile,  as  I  came  up,  and  I 
stopped  to  take  a  second  look  at  the  dexterity  and  ease 
with  which  it  was  done.  He  was  a  slight-made  and 
handsome  little  fellow,  not  quite  fifteen  years  of  age  ; 
and,  with  that  double  team  and  as  heavy  loads  as  could 
well  be  laid  upon  a  wagon,  he  had  made  the  trips  alone — 
the  four  mile  distance  being  mainly  a  descent  down  the 
mountain-side,  and  by  as  precipitous  and  rough  a  road  as 
could  well  be  called  passable.  Twice  back  and  forward, 
between  sunrise  and  night,  he  did  what  would  be  called  a 
very  fair  day's  work  for  a  hired  man  at  a  dollar  a  clay. 


310  LETTERS      FROM      I OLE  WILD. 

Constantly  applied    to,    as  editors    naturally  are,  foj 
information  as  to  "places"  for  boys  in  the  city— and  the 
rage  throughout  the  country  seeming  to  be  to  plunge  all 
"boys  that  mean  to  be  anything"  into  the  seething  cal 
dron  of  city  life— I  have  felt  my  curiosity,  for  the  yeai 
past,  turned  to  such  casual  observation  as  I  could  make 
of  boy-condition  in   the  country.     The   above-mentioned 
instance  is  one  of  many  that  I  have  noted,  as  illustrative 
of  the  value  of  boy-labor.     With  my  farming  neighbors, 
and  with  working  men,  I   have   gossiped   considerably 
about  the  proportion  of  farm  work  that  requires  the  main 
strength  of  a  man,  the  treatment  of  boys  generally,  the 
cost  of  their  clothing  and  schooling,  and  the  opportunities 
given  them  for  reading  or  for  relaxation.     I  have  come 
to   the   conclusion   that   the,  worst-treated  citizen   of  our 
"great  and  glorious  Republic"  is  the  boy  on  a  farm.     It 
seems  also  very  evident  to  me  that  there  is  no  occupation, 
at  which,  while  learning  the  art  of  it,  a  boy  can  so  well 
earn  his  livelihood  and  reserve  some  daily  leisure  for  him 
self.     And  it   seems   to   me,  too,  that,  considering   the 
healthiness  of  it,  the  out-door  variety  of  its  work,  and 
the  neighborhood  of  rural  liberty  and  amusements,  the 
ease  and  simplicity  of  its  acquirements  as  a  pursuit,  and 
the  certainty  and  readiness  with  which  its  knowledge  can 
be  early  practised  for  himself,  it  might  be  of  all  appren 
ticeships,  the  most  attractive  to  a  boy. 


THE     DIGNITY      OF      FARMING. 

I  wish  to  write  down  a  few  suggestions  on  this  subject, 
bnt  with  no  aim  at  a  direct  and  present  reform  in 
country-boy  condition.  The  present  race  of  short 
sighted  and  tyrannical  farmers,  who  take  boys  from  the 
work-houses,  and  "  get  all  they  can  out  of  'em,"  must 
first  die  off.  Public  opinion  must  be  so  changed,  and 
boys'  rights  so  well  understood,  as  to  over-rule  farm 
tyranny  ;  and  this  is  a  work  of  time.  The  pauper  boy 
will  not  be  decently  treated,  probably,  till  the  next  gene 
ration.  But,  meantime,  the  rush  of  "  all  the  intelligence" 
to  the  cities  needs  to  be  checked  ;  farming  needs  to  be 
rescued  from  its  present  stigma  of  being  "  only  work  for 
the  stupid  ones  who  can  do  nothing  else  ;"  education  and 
science  need  to  be  added  to  the  farmer's  business  necessi 
ties  ;  and  (last  and  perhaps  not  least )  pride  in  it,  as  a 
profession  for  a  manly  boy  to  prefer,  is  to  be  carefully 
contrived  for  and  sustained.  With  our  American  shop- 
keeping  getting  to  be  more  and  more  overdone,  and  our 
American  farming  yearly  complained  of,  as  meeting  less 
and  less  the  wants  of  the  country,  it  is  clear  that  the 
standard  of  respeda Ulity,  for  this  class  of  our  population 
needs  raising.  Farm  Colleges  and  Farm  Schools  are  excel 
lent  seed-sowers  for  this.  They  are  principally  endowed 
and  started  as  Public  Institutions,  however,  and  as  such 
are  cumbrous  and  slow  to  get  into  popular  operation — 
besides  the  political  bias  and  sectarianism  that  are  among 


312  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE  WILD. 

their  difficulties.  While  grafts  and  seedlings  from  these 
nurseries  may  doubtless  be  transferred  to  any  soil  or  dis 
tance,  and  do  well,  it  is  safer,  we  may  say,  to  have  the 
plant  first  take,  root  where  it  is  to  grow.  My  object,  at 
least,  is  to  show  how  boys  might  be  made  farmers  in  this 
neighborhood,  and  commence  the  acquirement,  tore,  of  a 
farmer's  independence  of  means.  I  may  treat  the  subject 
somewhat  locally,  perhaps  ;  but  the  material  that  I  find 
around  me  at  Idlewild,  may  be  suggestive,  to  others,  of 
more  to  be  found  elsewhere,  and  so  give  incidental 
impulse  to  an  inquiry  by  which  every  neighborhood  may 
profit. 

I  find  the  farmers  generally  willing  to  admit  that  a 
boy's  work  for  four  hours  a  day,  would  fairly  pay  for  his 
'board.  In  pushing  inquiry  as  to  the  different  kinds  of 
farm  work,  I  find,  too,  that  there  is  but  a  small  portion 
of  it  which  is  beyond  the  strength  of  a  well-grown  lad  of 
fifteen.  For  ditch-digging,  hay-pitching,  cradling  of 
grain,  wall-laying  and  heavy  ploughing,  they  would 
depend,  of  course,  on  the  main  strength  of  a  regular 
"hand;"  but  for  sowing,  light-ploughing,  hoeing,  weed 
ing,  carting  and  scattering  manure,  reaping,  thrashing, 
and  all  the  lesser  industries  of  stock-tending  and  barn 
work,  a  smart  boy  is  often  as  capable  as  a  man.  This 
applies  to  grain  farms,  or  to  those  mainly  devoted  to  hay 
and  stock.  Where  the  produce  is  only  fruit,  or  vege- 


PROFITS      OF      MARKET      GARDENERS.       313 

tables  for  the  city  market,  the  work  is  easier,  and  perhaps 
the  whole  of  it  could  be  done  by  boys. 

The  people  of  this  neighborhood  have  discovered, 
within  a  year  or  two,  that  they  have  exactly  the  right 
soil,  distance,  and  facilities,  for  supplying  the  lSTew  York 
market  with  fruit  and  vegetables.  The  freight-steamers 
which  leave  our  Cornwall  dock  at  eight  or  nine  in  the 
evening,  reach  the  jSorth  River  wharves  at  three  in  the 
morning.  Everything  put  on  board  is  taken  charge  of, 
on  commission,  and  sold  to  the  market-men  in  the  city  ; 
and  the  cash  (minus  the  per-centage)  returned  with  the 
baskets  and  barrels.  The  only  trouble  the  gardener  or 
farmer  has,  is  to  deliver  his  produce  on  board.  He  does 
this,  of  course,  easier  than  he  could  cart  it  to  the  market 
from  within  five  miles  of  the  city,  and  with  less  care  aud 
cost,  and  better  preservation  from  accident  and  jolting. 
At  present,  the  produce  passes  through  two  or  three 
hands  before  it  is  sold  to  the  city  consumer  ;  but  by  a 
combination  of  two  or  three  to  establish  stalls  supplied 
directly  from  their  own  farms  and  gardens,  these  several 
profits  would  be  reserved  (as  they  rightly  should  be)  to 
the  original  growers.  And,  with  the  high  city  prices, 
they  would  thus  be  most  profitably  paid. 

It  has  been  found  that  the  rocky  and  cheap  lands  at 
the  bases  and  on  the  sides  of  our  Hudson  River  moun 
tains,  are  particularly  favorable  to  the  growth  of  the 
14 


314  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE  WILD. 

Isabella  grape.  Several  of  our  neighbors  have  gone  into 
this  culture  very  largely.  When  it  is  remembered  that 
the  pioneer  of  this  particular  growth  (Underhill  of  Cro- 
ton  Point)  estimates  the  year's  product  of  one  acre  of  his 
grape  vines  at  a  thousand  dollars,  and  that  the  land 
about  here,  which  is  thought  to  be  even  better  soil  for 
the  purpose,  may  be  bought  for  from  fifty  to  a  hundred 
dollars  the  acre,  the  opening  for  enterprise  (in  connection 
with  the  market  facilities)  seems  ample.  For  fruit-trees 
of  most  kinds,  this  same  mountain-terrace  soil  is  very 
favorable.  It  is  an  old  custom  in  this  part  of  the 
country  that  the  farmers'  wives  and  daughters  should 
have  the  profits  of  the  farm  fruit  for  their  pin-money ; 
and,  from  the  intelligent  commission-captains  of  the 
freight-boats,  I  easily  procured  a  little  statistic  on  this 
subject.  The  pin-money  paid  at  Cornwall  dock — or  the 
proceeds  of  fruit  from  a  neighborhood,  say  four  miles 
back  from  the  river  and  two  miles  broad — amounted,  last 
season,  to  between  eighteen  and  nineteen  thousand 
dollars. 

The  table-land  behind  us,  walled  in  by  our  circle  of 
mountains,  has  been  treated  like  a  rough  and  out-of-the- 
way  corner  of  the  world,  poorly  farmed,  and  bought  and 
sold  at  very  low  prices.  Farms  that  would  be  every  way 
suitable  and  convenient  to  supply  the  ISTew  York  market 
with  fruit  and  vegetables  (as  stated  above),  may  be 


BOY-LABOR RECIPROCITY.  315 

bought  for  from  fifty  to  a  hundred  dollars  an  acre — the 
fancy-mile  within  view  of  the  river,  and  the  fields  of  old 
and  rich  culture,  of  course  exccpted.  Almost  anywhere, 
from  two  to  six  miles  back,  an  enterprising  and  skilful 
gardener  might  establish  himself  with  small  capital,  and 
commence  in  the  second  year  to  realize  a  large  profit  on 
his  investment.  And  it  is  the  labor  on  this  kind  of  farm 
that  could  be  done  almost  exclusively  by  boys — better 
done  by  them,  indeed,  for  it  is  mainly  an  exercise  of  intelli 
gent  attention,  for  which  the  Irish  laborer  is  vexatiously 
incompetent. 

But  boy-labor,  to  be  reliable  for  the  master,  must  not 
be  boy-slavery.  It  must  be  enlivened  and  steadied  by  an 
understood  footing  of  reciprocities  between  boy  and  mas 
ter — both  having  an  interest  in  its  being  faithfully  done. 
And  this  is  a  state  of  things  that  could  not  be  entered 
upon  to-morrow,  with  the  present  general  idea  of  how 
boys  may  be  used.  Information  is  sadly  wanted  on  this 
subject.  The  most  valuable  addition  that  could  be  made, 
just  now,  to  "  literature  for  the  people,"  would  be  a 
manual  of  boy-employment  and  treatment — defining  his 
rights  like  those  of  a  hired  man,  giving  the  terms  of  an 
agreement  for  his  labor,  specifying  his  privileges  of  spare 
time  and  agricultural  instruction,  describing  the  care  of 
him  by  the  mother  of  the  family,  and  plainly  stating  the 
ways  to  make  him  think  for  himself  and  respect  himself, 


316        LETTERS   FROM   IDLE  WILD. 

and  so  be  thought  of  and  respected  by  those  around  him. 
"With  this  kind  of  understanding,  every  intelligent  farmer 
could  profitably  take  half  a  dozen  boys  to  work  with  his 
one  or  two  hired  men,  and  teach  them  farming  while 
allowing  them  to  play  enough  and  read  enough  as  well  as 
earn  enough — a  Utopian  idea  for  the  present,  perhaps, 
or,  one,  at  least  by  which  the  poor  boy  is  not  likely  to 
profit  for  a  while. 

There  is  a  class  of  boys,  however,  for  whom  I  think  a 
beginning  might  be  made  immediately  practicable — the 
sons  of  parents  who  could  clothe  them,  provide  them  with 
books,  and  see  to  their  schooling  and  incidental  wants  for 
the  first  year.  [The  clothes,  by  the  way,  are  the  sore  spot 
in  loy  wrongs  in  the  country,  and  the  extinguisher  to 
that  loy  pride,  without  which  his  character  becomes  the 
fruitful  soil  for  rustic  meannesses.  Among  the  old 
farmer's  "  dodges,"  the  excuse  for  all  his  overworkings 
of  the  boy  is  "  the  money  it  costs  to  clothe  and  school 
Mm" — while  the  poor  lad's  habiliments  are  the  remainders 
of  the  old  man's  worn-out  coats  and  trousers,  fitted  and 
patched  with  such  skill  and  taste  as  Heaven  may  have 
vouchsafed  to  the  old  woman's  needle.  The  consciousness 
(No.  1)  with  which  the  "  young  farmer  "  walks  about  in 
a  pair  of  patched  and  big-breeched  pantaloons,  "  fitted  by 
only  cutting  the  legs  off  at  the  knee,  and  the  consciousness 
(No.  2)  with  which  he  hears  himself  glorified  by  a  politi- 


SUGGESTIONS    AS     TO     A     FAR  M S  CHOOL.    31 1 

cal  orator,  a  few  years  after,  as  the  country's  "  independ 
ent  bulwark/7  "bone  and  sinew,"  "  Nature's  gentleman" 
and  "  best  citizen,"  are  two  points  between  which,  to  say 
the  least,  there  is  a  —  —  chasm.] 

City  parents,  who  know  what  city  "  prospects  "  for  a 
son  are  likeliest  to  end  in — and  who,  unable  to  give  him 
a  college  education,  wish  him  to  enter  upon  the  pursuit 
that  will  soonest  support  him  and  be  least  liable  to 
reverses — are  those  who  oftenest  wish  to  make  farmers 
of  their  boys.  These  can  commonly  afford  to  clothe  the 
lad,  and  provide  him  with  books,  for  the  year  or  two 
years  that  he  is  a  beginner  and  earning  only  his  board  ; 
besides  taking  him  home  for  two  or  three  months  in  the 
winter  and  providing  him  with  the  means  of  going  to  and 
fro.  It  is  from  this  class  that  I  think  the  boy-labor  of 
vegetable  and  fruit  farms,  in  this  neighborhood,  would  be 
eagerly  supplied.  There  would  need  to  be,  first,  pro 
bably,  an  example.  And  this  would,  perhaps,  be  some 
thing  of  the  character  of  a  farm-school — except  that  the 
labor  of  the  boy  would  pay  for  his  board  and  his  tuition 
in  farming.  He  would  be  an  independent  laboring  boy 
rather  than  a  scholar.  But  the  employer  should  be  one 
who  would  take  proper  care  of  his  health  and  conduct  ; 
and  the  farm  should  be  a  large  one,  worked  by  a  suffici 
ent  number  of  boys  to  make  |the  enterprise  worth  a 
superior  man's  while.  It  would  be  very  easy  to  arrange 


318  LETTERS      FROM      I  I)  L  E  W  I  L  D  . 

a  system  by  which  each  boy  should  have  his  corner  of  a 
garden  to  be  worked  in  spare  hours  of  his  own — or  it 
might  be  possible  that  the  rent  of  the  land,  the  cost  of 
seed  and  labor  and  the  profits  of  the  crop  should  be 
shared  by  them  as  a  community  of  gardeners  under  a 
superintendent  employer.  There  are  many  shapes  which 
the  unquestionable  utility  of  boy-labor  might  afterwards 
take,  to  be  turned  to  profit.  But  the  beginning  I  hope 
for,  and  think  easy  in  this  neighborhood,  is  for  some  one 
intelligent  farm-gardener  to  let  it  be  known  that  he  will 
give  boys  board  for  their  work.  With  the  scarcity  and 
uncertainty  of  Irish  "  hands  "  at  the  critical  season  when 
labor  is  most  wanted,  boy-labor  would  supply  a  demand  ; 
and,  the  demand  once  begun  to  be  supplied  from  the 
wilderness  of  unemployed  "  Young  America "  in  the 
cities,  our  wasting  race  of  farmers  would  soon  be 
re-stocked.  We  know  of  one  or  two  capable  men,  among 
our  neighbors,  who,  with  the  aid  of  capital  to  enlarge 
their  conveniences  and  add  to  their  stock,  tools,  etc., 
would  at  once  enter  upon  this  system. 

There  are  progressive  steps  of  agricultural  life  under 
this  phase,  of  course,  which  would  follow  in  clue  succes 
sion.  A  literature  for  the  boy-class  of  farmers  is  wanted 
— beginning  with  a  simplification  of  so  much  of  the 
science  of  soil  and  products  as  the  youthful  mind  could 
readily  understand.  Other  and  correlative  knowledge 


SETTING-UP      OF     A      YOUNG      FARMER.      319 

might  be  selected  and  combined  into  a  series  expressly 
designated  The  Young  Farmer's  Library.  A  newspaper 
for  them  would  soon  flower  upon  this  stem  ;  and  it  is  not 
difficult  to  imagine  that  the  pride  and  enthusiasm  of  boys 
throughout  the  country  might  thus  be  gradually  interested 
in  the  pursuit. 

One  word  as  to  an  important  point — the  subsequent 
setting  up  of  the  young  farmer  for  himself.  It  would  be 
but  a  "  middling  sort  of  chap,"  in  this  part  of  the  country, 
who  should  have  lived  and  worked  in  a  neighborhood,  for 
years,  and  not  have  character  and  credit  enough  to  get 
"  trusted  "  for  land  to  live  upon.  Almost  every  one  of 
our  oldest  and  now  independent  farmers  took  his  land 
originally  on  that  tenure.  But,  while  a  much  smaller 
quantity  of  land  is  wanted  for  the  skilful  and  well 
practised  gardener,  the  profits  are  far  beyond  those  of 
ordinary  farming.  The  soil  increases  in  value,  too,  under 
the  hand  of  the  cultivator.  By  purchasing  forty  acres,  he 
could  so  improve,  while  taking  off  crops,  that  twenty 
would  sell,  after  four  or  five  years,  for  more  than  the  cost 
of  the  forty.  This  has  occurred  so  often,  hereabouts,  as 
to  be  calculated  on,  among  regular  prospects  and 
resources.  And  it  is  for  this  facility  of  a  first  start  on 
arriving  at  manhood — a  start  upon  character  without 
capital— that  I  should  advocate  the  education  by  boy- 
labor  upon  single  farms,  in  preference  to  education  in 


320  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE WILD. 

Farmer's  Colleges.  Ever  so  well  instructed,  in  a  large 
institution,  the  youth  is  adrift,  when  he  leaves  it.  To 
have  a  farm  (as  a  stranger  wishing  to  settle  anywhere), 
he  must  buy  and  stock  it,  with  "  money  down."  And, 
not  only  has  the  laboring  boy  the  advantage  of  having 
supported  himself,  and  extended  his  roots  of  character 
and  credit  where  he  means  to  grow  and  flourish,  but 
the  practice  of  his  agricultural  education  has  been  upon 
the  soil,  and  in  the  climate,  and  among  the  associations,  where 
his  future  industry  is  to  be  applied.  He  is  already  at  home 
when  he  begins — already  familiarized  with  the  obstacles 
and  resources  which  so  vary  with  different  locality. 

Hoping  soon  to  see  our  Highland  Terrace,  of  ten  miles 
square,  the  vegetable  and  fruit  garden  of  New  York,  and 
cultivated  mainly  by  boy-labor,  I  shall  keep  an  eye  on 
facilities  as  they  open  among  us,  and  return  to  the 
subject. 


COUNTRY     DISAGREEABLES.  321 


LETTER  XLYIII. 

Living  in  the  Country  all  the  Year  round— Trips  to  the  City— Hindrances  by 
Snow  on  the  Track— Chat  in  the  hindered  Cars— Mr.  Irving— Bad  Ventilation 
—Late  Arrival,  &c.,  &c. 

MarcJi  11, 1854. 

LIVING  in  the  country  all  the  year  round,  has  its  occa 
sional  misgivings  of  worth  while.  There  are  "  spells  of 
weather,"  as  the  country  people  call  them,  which,  for  a 
day  or  two  at  a  time,  in  this  northern  climate,  make  all 
out-doors  intolerable.  The  "  sloshy  going  »  is  discourag 
ing  enough when  the  snow  is  just  so  much  melted  with 

a  raw  east  wind  as  to  hold  water  six  or  eight  inches  deep 
on  a  side  hill — but  this,  though  it  makes  an  island  of  the 
house,  imprisons  only  those  vintager  snails,*  the  women 

*  Nature  seems  to  have  distinctly  endowed  some  of  her  creatures  with  the  in 
stinct  and  faculty  of  doing  without  open  air  for  long  periods.  Of  the  peculiar 
snail  that  lives  upon  the  grape,  Berneaud  says  :— "  On  the  approach  of  winter, 
the  vintager  snails,  several  together,  retire  into  holes  in  the  earth,  shutting  the 
openings  of  their  shells  with  a  calcareous  operculum,  and  not  making  their 
appearance  again  till  the  following  spring.  Our  ladies  certainly  have  this  "  cal 
careous  operculum,"  or  some  other  compound  of  in-door  resignation,  unknown 
to  the  ruder  sex. 

14* 


322  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE  WILD. 

and  children.  There  is  a  worse  stage  of  winter  which 
imprisons  also  man  and  horse — the  cold  after  a  thaw, 
when  the  roads  are  an  impassable  slough  of  false  mud, 
and  the  animal  that  you  ride  plants  one  foot  safely  on  the 
surface,  but  can  scarcely  extricate  the  other  from  the 
stiffening  mud  in  which  he  "  slumps  "  to  the  knee.  There 
is  no  exercise  to  be  got  by  riding,  and  walking  is  out  of 
the  question.  The  lungs  pine  for  expansion.  Blood  runs 
slow.  Sidewalks  and  omnibuses  begin  to  loom  up  with  a 
forgotten  glory. 

In  watching  the  railway  trains  from  my  library  win 
dow,  I  find  I  have  no  feeling  of  being-left-bekind,  except 
in  the  un-get-about-able  weather.  Happily  at  rest  while 
others  are  wearily  urged  onward — or  tiresomely  on  a  shelf 
while  others  have  liberty  to  change  the  scene — are  two 
impressions  receivable  from  the  same  smoke  of  a  flying 
locomotive  in  the  distance.  I  should  often  start  for  a 
week  in  the  city,  with  the  latter  feeling,  if  it  were  not 
for  the  horse  in  the  stable,  and  the  chance  of  out-doors 
freedom  to-morrow  ;  but,  last  week,  the  winter's  "  pro 
tracted  agony"  got  the  upper  hand,  and,  with  my 
"  1,000,000  pores"  voting  for  a  change  of  air,  I  gave 
in.  And,  of  some  of  my  experiences  'in  getting  to  the 
city,  I  may  as  well  make  a  passing  chronicle — adding,  as 
it  will,  to  an  understanding  of  that  life  hereabouts  which 
it  is  the  object  of  these  sketches  to  illustrate. 


A    "PLEASANT"    TRIP.  323 

We  usually  speak  of  the  city  as  about  two  hours  dis 
tant  ;  and,  though  a  snow-storm  came  on  in  the  night, 
after  my  preparations  to  go,  I  thought  it  would-be  such 
a  ploughing  as  I  had  frequently  seen  to  offer  little  or  no 
impediment  to  the  trains  during  the  winter,  and  started 
from  home  at  daylight  to  meet  the  cars,  in  full  faith  of  a 
noon  in  the  city.  As  I  did  not  reach  my  hotel  till  the 
following  midnight,  and  did  not  get  my  baggage  for  still 
eighteen  hours  more,  the  reader  will  see  what  slovenly 
service  it  is,  after  all,  spoken  of  so  grandly  by  the  philo 
sopher  : "  Man  is  a  world,  and  hath  another  world  to 

attend  on  him."     A  pocket  full  of  crackers  may  be  a  very 
comfortable  addition  to  such  a  couple  of  worlds. 

Missing  the  Newburgh-aud-Erie  train,  which  goes  down 
upon  our  side  of  the  Hudson,  and  then  driving  four  miles 
in  an  open  wagon  against  a  snow-storm  of  powdered 
needles,  and  crossing  the  river  to  Fishkill  by  a  ferry 
made  doubtful  by  the  ice,  I  got  seated  in  the  cars  some 
where  between  nine  and  ten  o'clock,  thinking,  that,  for 
this  trip  of  pleasure,  the  Compensation  Office  must  have 
taken  the  payment  in  advance.  We  started  well  enough 
out  of  the  village.  The  rails  had  been  cleared  by  the 
brakernen.  A  little  farther  on,  among  the  rocks,  how 
ever,  the  drifts  began  to  look  formidable,  and  I  soon  saw 
that  we  had  been  reached,  in  the  Highlands,  by  only  a 
thin  skirt  of  the  storm  of  the  night  before.  The  drifts 


324  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE  WILD. 

grew  deeper  and  deeper — our  headway  slower  and  slower 
— and  finally,  in  a  rocky  gorge,  just  opposite  Cozzen's 
Summer  Hotel,  we  came  to  a  stand  still  for  the  day — a 
tall  snow-bank  on  each  side  (neither  of  them  "  a  bank 
whereon  the  wile-time  grows")  our  only  prospect  from 
the  windows.  We  found  afterwards  that  the  stop  was 
partly  from  a  dread  of  meeting  an  up-train  and  running 
the  noses  of  the  two  locomotives  together  under  the 
snow  ;  and  that  the  delay  of  the  up-train  was  owing  to 
the  break  down  of  an  engine — but  our  several  halts 
chanced  to  be  in  spots  where  the  demand  for  "  pies  and 
coffee  "  had  not  been  anticipated,  and  the  cause  of  the 
delay  was  less  thought  of  than  the  famishing  consequen 
ces.  At  one  place,  1  believe,  a  passenger  or  two  waded 
back  a  long  distance  to  a  country  grocery  of  which  they 
had  got  a  glimmer  in  passing,  and  found  biscuits  and  gin 
gerbread  ;  but  the  remaining  stomachs  of  our  own  train, 
and  those  which  kept  accumulating  behind  us  from  the 
"West,  "  bore  on "  with  unassisted  resignation  till  mid 
night. 

We  Americans  are  a  patient  and  merry  people  under 
difficulties.  I  do  not  think  travellers  have  sufficiently 
given  us  credit  for  this  national  quality  of  jolly  indomita- 
Ueness.  The  successive  additions  to  our  long  line  of  trains 
stretched  to  very  near  a  mile,  by  sundown,  and  a  mile 
of  more  gay  and  cheerful  people — hungry  as  they  all 


WASHINGTON      IRVING.  325 

were — could  not  be  found  on  a  French  holiday.  A  foot 
path  was  soon  tracked  through  the  snow,  along  one  side 
of  the  cars,  at  each  stopping-place,  and  merriment 
resounded  under  all  the  windows — everybody  apparently 
acquainted  with  everybody,  and  no  sign  of  the  fretful 
grumbler  that  would 'have  abounded  in  such  a  disap 
pointed  multitude  in  Europe.  Yet  most  of  those  five 
hundred  jokers  were  business  men,  to  whom  the  delay 
was  a  serious  inconvenience. 

One  of  our  long  halts  was  under  "  Sunny  Side,"  Irving's 
residence.  It  was  long  after  dark,  and  the  car  was  double- 
filled — the  passengers  had  1been  condensed  into  the  for 
ward  trains,  to  detach  as  many  cars  as  possible,  and  so 
save  weight.  As  many  persons  were  standing  up  as  sit 
ting  down.  Conversation  was  general,  and  whoever  "  had 
the  floor "  was  heard  by  all.  One  man  announced  that 
we  were  but  a  stone's-throw  from  "Washington  Irving's. 
"  Well,"  said  a  rough-looking  fellow  from  the  corner,  "  I 
would  rather  lay  eyes  on  that  man  than  any  man  in  the 
world."  "I've  seen  him,"  said  another  ;  "  he  looks  like  a 
gentleman,  I  tell  you  !"  And  then  they  went  into  a  dis 
cussion  of  his  various  works — two  "  strong-minded " 
ladies  who  were  on  the  front  seat  taking  a  lively  and  very 
audible  part  in  it.  [Chancing  to  meet  Mr.  Irving,  two 
days  after,  at  the  Astor  Library,  and  finding  he  was  at 
home  at  the  time,  I  inquired  whether  his  ears  had  burned, 


326  LETTERS     FROM     I  D  L  E  W  I  L  I)  . 

about  eight  o'clock  on  a  certain  evening ;  but,  as  he  said 
"  no,"  there  is  less  magnetism  in  a  car-full  of  compli 
ments  than  would  be  set  down,  for  that  quantity  of  elec 
tric  influence,  probably,  by  the  Misses  Fox.] 

The  only  ill  temper  that  I  discovered,  during  the  four 
teen  hours  of  unfed  delay,  was  between  those  who  cared 
for  fresh  air,  and  those  who  preferred  the  allowance  of 
about  the  ventilation  they  would  get  in  a  coffin.  With 
the  standing  and  sitting  passengers,  and  the  cars  motion 
less,  the  atmospheric  vitality  within  was  exhaustible  in 
five  minutes  at  furthest  ;  and,  strangely  enough,  most  of 
those  sitting  at  the  windows  after  dark  refused  to  open 
them.  I  suffered  painfully  myself  from  the  foulness  of  the 
atmosphere,  all  day.  Then  the  stove  was  kept  almost 
red-hot,  and  with  the  snow  brought  in  by  the  feet  of  the 
passers  to  and  fro,  the  bottom  of  the  car  was  a  pool  of 
water.  Like  others,  probably,  who  had  not  foreseen  this, 
I  was  not  provided  with  India  rubbers,  and  of  course  sat 
with  damp  feet  all  the  way — a  dangerous  addition  to  an 
empty  stomach  and  a  pestilent  atmosphere.  Ah,  Messrs. 
Presidents  and  Directors  of  railways,  is  it  not  possible  to 
have  the  ventilation  of  cars  independent  of  those  who  do 
not  know  the  meaning  of  fresh  air. 

We  arrived  at  Thirty-first  street  in  the  neighborhood 
of  eleven  o'clock  ;  but,  as  no  announcement  was  made  of 
that  happy  fact,  we  sat  fifteen  or  twenty  minutes  in  the 


TERMINATION     AND     DE-TERMINATION.    32t 

cars,  wasting  our  resignation  on  a  supposed  snow-bank. 
With  the  discovery  that  the  snow  in  the  streets  would 
prevent  the  cars  from  going  farther,  and  that  the  baggage 
had  so  accumulated  with  the  numerous  trains  that  it 
could  not  be  delivered  till  morning,  the  next  query  was 
how  to  travel  the  three  miles  to  our  various  homes  and 
hotels  in  the  city.  There  was  one  four-horse  sleigh  in 
waiting,  and  probably  between  five  and  eight  hundred 
passengers.  Not  sorry,  myself,  to  stir  my  blood  with  a 
walk  for  that  distance  before  taking  my  lungs  to  bed,  I 
gave  my  check  to  an  Express  agent  (who  brought  my 
trunk  to  me  at  seven  the  next  evening),  and,  with  hun 
dreds  of  men,  women  and  children,  started  down-town- 
wards.  With  a  long  stumble  over  the  unshovelled  side 
walks  of  slumbering  and  ill-lighted  suburbs,  I  found  my 
self,  towards  midnight,  in  the  neighborhood  of  Union 
Square,  and,  over  a  venison  steak  which  I  found  smoking 
on  the  supper-table  at  the  Clarendon,  vowed  never  again 
to  make  even  a  two-hours'  pilgrimage  in  a  rail-car  without 
provision  against  accident— say  a  cracker  or  two  and 
some  shape  of  fluid  consolation. 


328  LETTERS      FROM      IDLEWILD. 


LETTER  XLIX. 

Frst  Signs  of  Spring— A  Public  of  Invalids— An  Invalid  Chronicle— Letter  from 
a  Lady— Our  Friend  S.— Beauty  of  Old  Age,  &c.,  &c. 

March,  IS, 1854. 

THE  Hudson  has  thrown  off  his  overcoat  of  ice,  and 
offers  the  welcome  of  a  bare  breast  to  the  winds  of 
Spring — and  Spring  it  has  been,  for  this  first  week  of 
March,  sunny  and  soft,  and  (wherever  the  mud  could  be 
forgotten)  beautiful.  The  Storm  King's  shoulders,  it  is 
true,  still  show  the  chinchili  edge  of  his  mantle  of  firs  and 
snow,  and  there  is  a  swan's-down  tippet,  here  and  there, 
on  the  lap  of  a  Korth-looking  hill  ;  but,  in  corners,  where 
you  can  get  away  from  the  Winds,  and  be  alone  with  the 
caressing  Sun,  it  is  as  sweet  a  courtship  of  Summer  as 
any  reasonable  anticipation  could  desire.  I  have  a  seat 
in  a  niche  of  rock,  between  two  precipices  which  come 
together  as  if  to  shut  in  the  "  due  South  ;"  and  here  I 
could  have  sat,  with  the  most  shrinkingly  delicate  of  my 
many  "  invalid "  correspondents,  and  gossiped  away  any 
noon  since  the  opening  of  March,  with  our  respective 
coughs  fast  asleep  in  their  cradles.  The  winds  are  doubly 


AN      INVALID      CHRONICLE.  329 

excluded  by  the  tall  hemlocks  overhanging  the  cliffs 
above  ;  and  the  rushing  cascade,  which  plunges  a  hundred 
feet  in  its  two  or  three  leaps  below,  makes  a  lullaby  that 
would  drown  a  cough  if  it  did  not  help  to  still  it  ;  so, 
come  to  Idlewild,  dear  co-Pulmonaries,  and,  in  the  sunny 
seat  under  the  rock,  chat  or  muse— the  evergreen  woods 
shutting  you  in  with  foliage  like  the  curtains  of  Summer, 
and  Winter's  forgiven  Out-doors  taken  kindly  to  your 
bosom. 

That  the  Invalids,  in  our  climate,  amount  to  a 
"Public'7— a  Public  on  which  "a  paper  might  be 
started,"  to  use  a  very  definite  phrase— I  have  a  daily 
increasing  conviction.  There  is  a  pulse  of  popular  feeling 
which  every  editor  has,  in  his  correspondence  ;  and  mine, 
on  this  subject,  beats  more  and  more  strongly.  Of  medical 
books  there  is  no  end,  it  is  true  ;  and  you  would  suppose, 
at  a  first  glance,  that  they  must  be  all  that  an  invalid 
could  require  ;  but  no— it  is  the  patient,  not  the  doctor, 
they  want  to  talk  with.  Under  every  "  Public »  must 
run  a  nerve  of  common  sympathy.  And  (besides  its  not 
having  fellow-feeling  enough  for  a  large  edition)  every 
medical  book  is  but  a  single  theory,  if  not  an  old  and 
disputed  one.  The  experiences  of  yesterday,  with  the 
narrator's  own  life  interested  in  the  question,  and  no 
'pathy-bigotry,  are  what  is  thirsted  for.  Every  sufferer's 
case  is,  in  some  respects,  peculiar  ;  and  more  is  learned 


330  LETTERS     FROM     IDLEWILD. 

by  comparison  of  symptoms  and  treatment,  than  by  clas 
sified  medical  reports — each  patient  capable  of  becoming, 
by  the  exercise  of  good  judgment  and  careful  observation, 
a  better  judge  of  his  own  condition  than  most  doctors. 
In  the  lack  of  "  hubs  "  for  the  social  wheels  of  a  city,  I 
wonder  no  one  has  ever  thought  of  starting  an  invalid 
conversazione. 

But,  one  of  my  anonymous  correspondents  suggests  an 
additional  element  of  popularity  in  a  chronicle  for  invalids 
— no  less  than  the  pleasure  taken  by  the  gentler  sex  in 
reading  of  that  condition  in  which  man  is  dependent  on 
their  care.  Thus  writes  a  lady,  in  reply  to  a  paragraph 
in  the  Home  Journal,  as  to  the  objections  to  such 
articles  : — 

"  I  am  sure,  I  cannot  see  why  any  one  objects  to  your  holding  a 
weekly  chat  with  your  invalid  friends.  I  will  not  flatter  you  by 
saying  how  you  make  them  look  in  print ;  but,  to  me,  sick  folks 
are  always  interesting,  in  reality  ;  especially  you  '  lords  of  crea 
tion.'  To  see  you  stripped  of  all  the  might  and  majesty  that 
make  the  glorious  difference,  and  compelled  to  acknowledge  you 
are  very  poor  creatures  without  our  aid !  "What  can  be  more 
elating  than  the  sight  of  an  indifferent  one,  who  has  been  looking 
down  on  us  so  long,  being  made  to  elevate  his  eyebrows,  and  sue 
humbly  fora  little  toast  and  tea ?  But,  really,  every  one  is  more 
loveable  sick  than  well.  If  I  were  a  novel-writer,  I  should  cer 
tainly  make  all  my  characters  sick  once,  at  least,  in  the  work. 
Some  few  authors  do  seem  to  understand  this  weakness  in  our  sex 


THE      VENERABLE      NEIGHBOR. 

The  very  anxiety  one  feels  for  a  poor  fellow,  endears  him  to  us,  no 
matter  how  slight  his  hold  on  our  affections,  when  glorying  in 
his  strength.  Talk  on,  then,  with  your  sick,  and  let  those  object 
who  never  were,  and  are  sure  they  never  will  be.  I  shall  not, 
for  fear  I  should  be  laid  on  the  shelf  some  time  myself.  I  write 
this  because  your  valued  hints  to  consumptives  have  been  blessed 
to  one  I  love,  and  I  could  not  refrain  from  thanking  you  for 
them. 


M." 


Well,— it  shall  be  a  side  aim,  in  these  "  Out-door  "  chro 
nicles  (if  you  please,  ladies  !),  to  show  what  there  is 
interesting  hereabouts,  to  Invalid  readers  more  particu 
larly.  The  Highlands  are  a  Hygeian  home— the  lap  of 
the  goddess  herself— and,  of  a  health-seeking  life,  here,  the 
details  may  be  valued  as  information  for  the  sufferer, 
whether  amusing  to  the  general  reader  or  no.  To  robust- 
dom  we  will  minister,  in  turn. 

Spring's  most  dignified  and  beautiful  return,  at 
Idlewild,  has  been  with  us,  to-day— our  venerable 
neighbor,  of  eighty  years  of  age,  whose  white  locks,  and 
face  with  the  benignity  of  a  Summer's  evening,  came  back 
with  the  first  softening  of  the  season.  He  goes  to  the 
city— this  beloved  neighbor  of  ours— when  the  roads 
become  impassable  for  his  tremulous  feet ;  but  he  gains 
health  (as  he  was  saying  with  his  usual  truthful  wisdom 
to-day),  not  alone  from  the  sidewalks  and  other  opportu 
nities  of  exercise.  In  the  mental  "  change  of  air  "  he  finds, 


332  LETTERS      FROM     IDLE WILD. 

an  invigorating  tonic — (one,  by  the  way,  which  I  am  glad 
of  this  bright  example  to  assist  in  recommending  to  the 
dispirited  invalid,  for  there  is  more  medicine  in  it  than 
would  be  believed,  without  trial) — and  he  inhales  it  in  the 
larger  field  that  he  finds  for  the  instructive  benevolence 
which  forms  his  occupation  in  the  country.    He  passes  his 
time  in  the  city  in  visiting  schools,   hospitals,  prisons — 
every  place  where  human  love  and  wisdom  would  look  in 
together.     He  speaks  fluently.     His  voice  is  singularly 
sweet  and  winning  ;  and  with  his    genial   and  beautiful 
expression   of  countenance,    his   fine   features,    and   the 
venerable  dignity  of  his  bent  form  in  its  Quaker  garb,  he 
is  listened  to  with  exceeding  interest.     Children,  particu 
larly,  delight  to  hang  on  his  words.     One  great  charm, 
perhaps,  is  his  singular  retention  of  creativeness  of  mind 
— though  so   old,  still   continuing  to  talk  as    he   newly 
thinks,  not  as  he  only  remembers.     The  circumstances  of 
the   moment  therefore   suffice  for  a   theme,    or   for  the 
attractive  woof  on  which  to  broider  instruction  ;  and  he 
does  it  with  a  mingling  playfulness  and  earnestness  which 
form  a  most  attractive  as  well  as  valuable  lesson.     Can 
any  price  be  put  on  such  an  old  man,  as  the  belonging 
of  a  neighborhood  ?      Can  landscape  gardening  invent 
anything  more  beautiful  than   such   a  form   daily  seen 
coming  through   an   avenue   of    trees,    his   white  locks 
waving  in  the  wind,  and  the  children  running  out  to  meet 


BEAUTY      OF      OLD      AGE. 

him  with  delight  ?      Friend  S strolls  to  Idlewild,  on 

any  sunny  day,  and  joins  us  at  any  meal,  or  lies  down  to 
sleep  or  rest  on  a  sofa  in  the  library— and,  can  painting 
or  statuary  give  us  any  semblance,  more  hallowing  to  the 
look  and  character  of  a  home,  more  cheering  and  dignify 
ing  to  its  atmosphere  and  society  ?  Among  the  Arts— 
among  the  refinements  of  taste— in  the  culture  of  Beauty, 
in  America— let  us  give  Old  Age  its  preeminence  !  The 
best  arm-chair  by  the  fireside,  the  privileged  room  with  its 
warmest  curtains  and  freshest  flowers,  the  preference  and 
first  place  in  all  groups  and  scenes  in  with  Age  can 
mingle— such  is  the  proper  frame  and  setting  for  this 
priceless  picture  in  a  home.  With  less  slavery  to 
business,  and  better  knowledge  and  care  of  health,  we  shall 
have  more  Old  Age  in  our  country— in  other  words,  for 
our  homes  there  will  be  more  of  the  most  crowning 
beauty. 


334  LETTERS      FROM      IDLEWILD. 


LETTER  L. 

Breaking  up  of  the  River-ice— Dates  of  previous  Resumings  of  Navigation- 
Companionship  in  the  distant  Views  of  Travel— Nature's  Illnesses— Hill 
sides,  &c.,  &c. 

March  25, 1854. 

THE  most  stirring  bit  of  news,  probably,  in  the  whole 
year,  for  this  neighborhood,  is  the  breaking  up  of  the 
ice  at  the  mountain-lock,  at  West  Point,  and  the  passing 
of  the  first  steamer  through.  "  A  boat  up  yesterday  n 
(March  9)  is  this  morning's  announcement  of  suspended 
life  re-begun.  Our  dock  is  once  more  noisy  and  lively, 
like  returning  voice  and  color  to  the  Highland  lip  ;  and 
the  wagons  begin  to  come  and  go  on  the  branching  roads, 
like  blood  that  has  again  found  circulation  in  the  veins. 
The  trance  is  over.  We  shake  hands  with  the  city  again, 
and  resume  our  suburban  interchanges  and  daily  com 
merce,  to  and  fro. 

But,  from  a  solid  valley  to  a  flowing  river,  the  change 
is  large.  The  rippled  surface  of  the  Hudson  flows,  now, 
where  I  was  watching  a  trotting  race  of  eight  or  ten  sleighs 
but  a  few  days  ago.  The  manly  boys  of  my  neighbor 


STATISTICS     OF     RIVER-CLOSINGS.       335 

Roe's  school-family  skated  to  Newburgh,  it  hardly  seems 
further  off  than  yesterday,  and,  to-day,  the  sloop-prows 
are  ploughing  on  the  track  of  their  skate-irons.  We 
conld  take  a  walk  where  now  we  must  take  a  boat.  The 
hills  opposite  were  apparently  across  a  two-mile  meadow — 
they  are  now  acress  a  two-mile  river.  For  the  familiar 
landscape  seen  from  the  window  of  one's  home,  this  is  a 
startling  variation. 

The  river  has  been  closed  this  year  for  sixty-two  days. 
It  may  be  interesting  to  record  the  length  of  a  few  pre 
vious  shuttings-up,  as  given  in  a  little  table  by  the  Al 
bany  Argus — the  dates  of  the  closing  of  the  river  and 
the  number  of  days  navigation  was  suspended  : 

1842,  November  29   ...  closed  136  days. 

1843,  December  9        .     .  do.   95  do. 

1844,  do.  11  ...  do.  74  do. 

1845,  do.  4  .  do.  100  do. 

1846,  do.  15  .  .  do.  112  do. 

1847,  do.  24  ...  do.  89  do. 

1848,  do.  27  ;  do.  82  do. 

1849,  do.  25  ...  do.  73  do. 

1850,  do.  17  .  .  do.  70  do. 

1851,  do.  11  ...  do.  105  do. 

It  is  curious  how  the  mere  visibkness  of  event  and  mul 
titude — the  distant  view  of  perpetually  passing  fleets  of 
sails  and  steamers  with  which  one  has  no  communication 


336  LETTERS      FROM      IDLEWILD. 

—breaks  up  the  solitude  of  the  country.  It  makes  the 
difference  (duly  priced  in  the  acre)  between  living  on  the 
river  and  away  from  it.  The  beauty  of  the  view  is  of 
less  value  than  the  companionship  there  is  in  it.  I  find 
the  eye  can  take  in  the  needed  food  for  this  social  craving. 
At  my  window,  on  this  terrace  of  the  Highlands,  I  some 
times  look  off,  from  a  tired  pen,  upon  the  fleets  of  sails, 
crowded  steamers  and  lines  of  tow-boats  and  barges,  and 
feel,  after  a  minute  or  two,  as  if  I  had  been  where  people 
are.  It  does  not  need  question  and  reply  to  exchange 
magnetism  with  others,  nor  does  it  need  nearer  neighbor 
hood,  I  fancy,  than  the  distance  to  which  the  eye  can  ever 
so  indistinctly,  follow  the  imagination.  Many  a  traveller 
up  the  Hudson  has  helped  to  break  the  solitude  of  Idle- 
wild,  by  what  he  gave  to  my  thought — the  thought  that 
went  to  him  as  he  passed,  and  came  back  from  him  to  me. 
But  I  must  not  undervalue  the  human  voice — startled 
as  I  was  this  morning  by  the  first  Spring  addition  of  my 
children's  voices  to  the  brook-music  of  the  glen.  With 
the  ice  on  the  hanging  paths  of  our  precipitous  rocks, 
those  little  feet  were  not  to  be  trusted  with  full  liberty 
till  the  sides  of  the  ravine  should  be  bare  ground,  at 
least  ;  but  yesterday's  west  wind,  after  the  soft  coming 
in  of  March,  took  off  the  embargo.  Never  was  change 
of  season  more  joyously  welcomed.  Leave  to  trace  up 
the  bright  windings  of  Funnychild  brook,  for  play,  and 


IDLEWILD      BROOK.  331 

climb  along  the  sides  of  the  wild  torrent  of  Idlewild,  for 
wonder — the  two  streams,  from  their  two  separate  glens, 
meeting  in  the  meadow  with  a  hemlock-sheltered  lawn 
between  such  as  fairies  would  choose  to  dance  upon — was 
liberty  indeed.  More  varied  play-ground  could  scarcely 
be  contrived,  yet  all  shut  in  with  crags  and  woods  full 
of  echoes.  And  the  change  this  makes,  in  the  music 
that  is  never  still  for  us  with  these  swollen  torrents — 
words  and  laughter  added  to  the  voiceless  voluntary, 
which,  in  every  room  of  our  cottage  above,  is,  day  and 
night,  audible  !  It  is  a  long-played  accompaniment  that 
has  at  last  started  into  a  song. 

With  an  invalid's  eye,  one  symptom-izes  beauty,  more  or 
less,  even  in  Nature.  In  our  poetic  days  of  youth  and 
health,  we  fall  in  love  with  a  consumptive  cheek,  without  a 
thought  of  its  needing  health  to  be  more  beautiful.  Idle- 
wild  brook  now,  swollen  to  a  resistless  cataract  in  the  glen, 
seems  to  be  glorious,  most  of  all,  for  its  defying  health — 
so  fearless  of  winter,  so  uuimprisonable  by  ice,  so  louder 
and  brighter  for  snow  and  rain.  It  triumphs  in  strength 
while  the  trees  and  flowers  waste  and  fade — though  one 
envies  it  less  by  remembering,  that,  in  its  turn,  it  will 
"  sing  small "  while  trees  and  flowers  bloom  and  brighten. 
There  is  comfort  in  the  thought  that  it  is  not  in  Nature  to 
be  always  strong.  She  has  her  "ups  and  downs,77  with 
out  sins  of  diet  or  irregularity.  And  I  am  not  sure  that 

15 


338  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE  WILD. 

the  souVs  flood  does  not  strengthen,  like  this  brook  in 
winter,  while  the  body's  summer  gives  place  to  weakness 
and  decay.  It  may  be  Nature's  alternating  law — the 
mind-freshets,  which  are  part  of  it,  being  well-needed  to 
sweep  away  the  cloggings-up  and  incumbrances  of  health's 

careless  season. 

#  *  *  *  *  * 

Many  a  strange  thing  may  pass  by  a  man's  windows  ; 
and  we  should  not  too  readily  take  an  impression  that  the 
world  has  come  to  an  end.  One  of  our  neighbors,  last 
Saturday  noon,  however,  might  reasonably  have  relin 
quished  for  a  moment  his  moral  appetite  for  the  dinner 
cooking  before  him — no  less  a  passenger  than  a  neighbor 
ing  hill  crossing  the  road,  as  he  stood  in  his  kitchen  ;  and, 
after  a  leisurely  glide,  along  what  was  almost  a  level  of 
three  hundred  feet,  stopping  and  standing  like  any  other 
hill,  on  the  bank  of  the  river  !  His  house  was  a  new  one, 
of  two  stories  ;  and  if  its  foundations  had  been  laid  but  a 
few  feet  farther  north,  it  would  have  been  swept  under, 
with  all  his  women  and  children,  like  a  crushed  band-box. 
It  will  be  understood  of  course,  that  this  was  a  slide  of  a 
clay-bank,  occasioned  by  the  excavations  for  brick-mak 
ing  ;  but,  even  in  the  history  of  "slides"  (one  or  two 
remarkable  and  fatal  ones  having  occurred  at  Troy,  some 
years  since,  it  will  be  remembered),  this  will  probably 
rank  as  the  most  remarkable.  A  train  of  cars  would 


A      LAND-SLIDE.  339 

hardly  make  the  same  descent  of  three  hundred  feet  by 
their  own  weight  on  a  rail-road.  From  the  base  of  the 
old  digging  to  the  present  site  of  the  removed  hill,  it  not 
only  looks  to  be  a  long  level,  but  the  public  road,  from 
Newburgh  to  Cornwall,  offered  a  barrier  of  perhaps  eigh 
teen  inches  of  elevation.  At  present,  the  tail  of  the  slide 
lies  across  this  turnpike,  to  the  height  of  about  twelve 
feet,  and  the  interrupted  travel  is  sent  around  by  a  back 
road. 

My  first  inquiry,  naturally,  as  a  humane  neighbor, 
was  of  the  peril  to  life  ;  for  it  had  been  a  scene  of  busy 
industry,  with  teams  and  workmen  so  close  under  the 
base,  that  twenty  men  and  their  horses  might  easily  have 
been  swallowed  up.  But  it  was,  providentially,  a  rainy 
day,  of  suspended  work  ;  and  not  even  a  passing  traveller 
(who  would  also  have  run  a  very  great  risk)  was  on  the 
road  at  the  moment.  The  coachman  of  one  of  our  neigh 
bors  had  the  only  narrow  escape,  having  just  passed,  and 
being  only  astounded  at  the  noise  of  the  crashing  of  the 
tall  trees  torn  from  the  fields  above.  But  my  next  feel 
ing,  I  confess,  was  rather  a  rejoicing  in  the  righteous 
judgment  of  the  supposed  damage — for  these  brick-yard 
diggings  had  been  the  disfiguring  of  one  of  the  most 
lovely  spots  on  the  shore  of  the  Hudson.  It  was  a  cresent 
bay,  with  a  smooth  beach  of  sand  ;  and  the  mountainous 
shore,  following  its  shape,  was  a  half-vase  of  natural 


340  LETTERS      FROM      IDLEWILD. 

lawn,  shaded  with  noble  cedars — a  river  frontage  for  a 
villa,  such  as  a  man  could  not  get  shaped  and  shaded  in  a 
life-time.  To  see  these  un-restorable  and  beautiful  trees 
hewn  ruthlessly  down,  and  the  green  slopes  torn  open  for 
clay-pits,  had  been  a  discord  in  the  music  of  my  daily 
ride  along  the  river.  I  say  I  rather  rejoiced  in  the 
calamity's  happening  to  Mr.  Underbill,  the  brick-maker 
—(willing  only  to  be  humanely  pleased  that  his  name  did 
not  express  his  bodily  share  in  it).  But  I  was  a  little  too 
fast.  Mature,  with  Christian  "  turning  of  the  other 
cheek  also,"  was  helping  rather  than  punishing  her 
defacers.  The  job  to  fill  up  the  new  dock,  into  the  centre 
of  which  slid  the  hill,  was  to  be  done  by  men  and  carts, 
under  contract,  for  a  thousand  dollars.  The  teams  and 
pickaxes  had  made  a  beginning  ;  but  (like  the  squirrel 
who  begged  the  Kentucky  rifleman  not  to  waste  his 
powder,  for  he  knew  his  skill,  and  would  come  downj,  the 
obliging  hill  walked  across  the  road  and  "  dumped  "  itself, 
just  where  it  was  wanted.  Never  was  a  greater  saving 
of  cartage — the  Spirit  of  Beauty  unavenged  notwith 
standing. 

"  Three  inches  of  declivity  to  a  mile"  (they  say  of  river 
courses)  "  gives  a  velocity  of  three  miles  in  the  hour  to 
the  stream  ;  and  the  great  river  Magdalena,  in  South 
America,  runs  a  thousand  miles,  with  a  fall  of  only  five 
hundred  feet  in  all  that  distance.  But,  I  suppose  that  a 


THE     LESSON      DEDUCED.  341 

high  hill,  resting  on  a  bed  of  blue  clay,  moistened  by 
springs,  would  descend  with  quite  as  facile  a  celerity- 
obstacles  once  removed.  The  pickaxes  of  those  Irish 
laborers  had  probably  taken  away  the  sand  and  gravel 
that  alone  blocked  up  the  hill  which  stood  on  this  slippery 
plane  ;  and,  with  a  throe  of  the  heaving  frost  (which 
farmers  know  to  be  so  repulsive),  it  took  its  start,  From 
its  look  of  durability,  however,  almost  any  lover  of  a  fine 
view  might  have  built  his  cottage  on  the  summit ;  and  he 
would  thus  have  found  his  home  suddenly  changed  into  a 
projectile,  in  a  way  to  entitle  him  to  some  astonishment. 
We  should  look  to  see  what  bases  we  build  upon. 


342  LETTERS      FROM      IDLEWILD. 


LETTER   LI. 

Weather-wise  Squirrels— Effect  of  Spring  Winds  on  Roads— Dodge  of  Turnpike 
Companies — Anecdote  of  a  Teamster's  Revenge — The  Kings  in  Republics — 
Road  from  Newburgh  to  West  Point,  &c.,  &c. 

April  1,  1S54. 

THE  chipping-squirrels  were  right  about  it.  They 
never  appear  till  the  last  "cold  snap"  is  over  ;  and  not 
withstanding  seventeen  days  of  most  insinuating  summer 
weather  (since  the  first  of  March),  they  have  let  the  more 
sanguine  blue-birds  have  it  all  to  themselves.  On  the 
sixteenth,  the  oppressive  sultriness  of  the  weather  brought 
out  myriads  of  musquitoes  in  our  meadows  ;  but,  to-day 
— the  eighteenth — a  cold  and  sharp  northern  gale  is  lash 
ing  the  trees  about,  like  whips,  and  the  sagacious  squir 
rels  are  well  off  in  their  holes,  with  last  year's  nuts  on 
hand,  and  their  little  ones  not  started  in  too  much  of  a 
hurry  to  seek  their  fortunes. 

This  furious  wind,  blowing  under  a  brilliant  sun,  will 
help  to  dry  up  our  roads,  however — to  the  undeserved 
profit  of  the  Turnpike  Company,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  who, 
with  roads  thus  made  passable  by  a  wind  that  costs 


NO      TOLL NO      RESPONSIBILITY.  343 

nothing,  will  be  entitled  once  more  to  close  gates  and 
take  toll.  Oh,  the  nice  little  chartered  "  dodge  "  there  is 
in  that  "liberal  arrangement"  of  taking  no  toll  when 
the  roads  are  very  bad  !  Of  course  there  is  no  responsi 
bility  when  no  toll  is  taken.  ]STo  complaint  can  be  made  ; 
no  Inspector  can  be  called  out,  at  the  expense  of  five  dol 
lars  to  the  Company  ;  and  (there  being  no  Inspector's 
report  for  a  compulsion),  of  course,  there  need  be  no 
mending  of  the  roads  till  the  sun  and  wind  take  the  job 
off  their  hands.  How  full  our  free  Republic  is  of  kings 
in  small  pieces  !  What  a  regiment  of  Czars  could  be 
mustered  out  of  the  collected  fragments  of  tyrants, 
snugly  hidden  under  Companies  and  Public  Offices,  all 
over  our  land  of  liberty ! 

But,  now  and  then,  a  splinter  of  the  American  mon 
arch's  divided  sceptre  pricks  a  republican  finger,  and  is 
enough  rebelled  against  to  require  to  be  shaved  down  a 
little.  I  can  illustrate  it,  perhaps,  by  a  very  small  and 
common  country  circumstance — a  subject  of  village  gossip 
hereabouts  not  long  ago. 

One  of  our  back-woods  farmers,  who  comes  down  from 
the  mountains  with  lumber  and  fire-wood  when  the  farm- 
work  is  suspended  (just  when  the  roads  are  at  the  worst, 
unfortunately),  had  been  in  the  habit  of  fretting  some 
what  over  the  payment  of  a  toll — the  most  of  the  dis 
tance  he  had  to  travel  being  upon  the  district  roads,  and 


344  LETTERS      FROM      IDLEWILD. 

this  one  toll-gate  covering  a  very  small  portion  of  his 
route,  as  well  as  its  heaviest  and  worst  wheeling.  It  was 
paying  a  tax  for  a  worse  road  than  there  would  be  if 
there  were  no  turnpike  at  all  ;  and,  with  his  reluctant 
pennies,  Farmer  A.  paid  out  usually  some  expression  of 
his  sentiments.  This  bred  a  cool  state  of  feeling,  very 
naturally,  between  him  and  toll-keeper  B.  So,  seeing 
him  come  down  the  mountain  with  a  heavy  load,  one  day, 
when  the  gate  had  been  open  from  the  bad  condition  of  the 
road,  B.  ran  out  and  closed  his  gate,  determined  to  vex  his 
neighbor  by  exercising  his  discretionary  power  of  demand 
ing  a  toll.  A.  came  along  ;  and,  at  first,  refused  to  pay, 
and  made  a  demonstration  of  opening  the  gate  by  force. 
But  the  quiet  reminder  by  B,  that  the  fine  of  that  luxury 
was  twenty-five  dollars,  made  him  think  better  of  it,  and 
he  paid  the  toll  and  drove  on. 

The  Christian  resignation  of  farmer  A.  was  not  pro 
moted  by  his  experience  of  the  turnpike  privilege  for 
which  he  had  just  paid.  The  sloughs  and  mire-pits  were 
deep  and  desperate  ;  and,  in  one  of  them,  his  struggling 
and  plunging  team  fairly  stuck,  and  he  was  obliged  to 
call  help,  and  pry  out  with  rails,  after  unloading.  This 
raised  his  temper  to  the  peg  above  caring  for  cost  ;  and, 
on  his  arrival  at  the  village,  late  and  tired,  he  made 
straight  for  a  lawyer.  To  his  furiously-told  story,  of  the 
state  of  the  turnpike,  the  lawyer  listened,  but  shook  his 


PAYING      FOR      A      NUISANCE.  345 

head  discouragingly — knowing  the  slender  chance  of 
the  individual  against  incorporated  companies — till  A. 
chanced  to  mention,  last  and  incidentally,  that  the  gate 
had  taken  toll  from  him  on  that  day.  Here  was  a  ray  of 
hope.  The  Company's  usual  dodge  had  been  incautiously 
forgotten  by  toll-keeper  B.  The  toll  having  been  taken, 
the  turnpike  was  responsible  for  the  state  of  the  road  at 
that  particular  time.  A  complaint  could  be  forwarded — 
the  Inspector  could  be  called  out — the  tyrannical  Com 
pany  could  be  made  to  pay,  at  least  five  dollars,  besides 
mending  the  road  at  one  particular  slough.  So  A.  had 
his  one-vote-sized  revenge — the  getting  a  chance  to  crow, 
once,  over  the  Turnpike  Company,  as  an  offset  to  paying 
forty  years  of  toll. 

The  lurking  vanity  of  power  over  neighbors  is  the  only 
secret  of  the  continuance  of  this  nuisance.  The  stock 
holders  do  not  make  a  cent  by  it,  but  they  are  still 
"  stockholders  " — and,  to  see  a  toll  paid  to  their  gate  is 
to  be  able  to  imagine  themselves  the  rulers  of  the  country 
round  about.  But  turnpikes  are  incorporated  only  to  keep 
thoroughfares  open  till  the  inhabitants  can  afford  to  do  it 
by  gratuitous  labor  ;  and  the  free  "  district  roads  "  (which 
are  all  the  other  highways)  are,  at  present,  so  much 
better  kept  than  our  turnpike,  that  the  latter  is  simply  a 
nuisance  for  which  we  have  to  pay.  The  stockholders 
should  throw  up  their  profitless  charter,  and  let  us  dis- 

15* 


346  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE WILD. 

trict  the  route,  and  keep  "  decent  going  "  for  the  traveller, 
and  without  charge.  But,  no  !— they  would  not  then  be 
"  stockholders."  And  so  (as  my  lesser-anxiety  man 
expresses  himself)  we  must  "  connive  and  worry  along," 
till  public  opinion  compel  our  disguised  monarch  to 
abandon  this  for  some  other  shape  of  power. 

Along  the  river — with  the  land  highly-priced  for  orna 
mental  residences — the  state  of  road-civilization  is,  of 
course,  an  epoch  in  advance  of  the  back-country  turnpike. 
From  Idlewild  to  Newburgh  it  is  one  of  the  smoothest, 
as  well  as  most  romantically  beautiful,  of  drives,  for  the 
greater  part  of  the  year — thanks  to  our  wealthy  and 
liberal  neighbor,  path-master  Miller,  for  the  best  kept  por 
tion  of  it.  And  this  is  to  be  a  thronged  and  fashionable 
avenue,  by  the  improvement  now  busily  canvassed. 
Idlewild  is  soon  to  be  the  half-way  mark  in  an  eight- 
mile  drive  along  the  river  from  Xewburgh  to  West  Point. 
Oh,  the  tempting  trip  it  will  be — a  trot  through  the 
Highland  gorge  of  the  Hudson,  when  the  hills  throw  the 
afternoon  shade  upon  the  road,  to  see  the  parades  of 
the  Cadets  and  hear  the  military  bands — the  crowds  of 
summer  visitors,  at  the  thronged  hotels  at  both  ends  of 
the  drive,  thus  meeting  for  a  sunset  promenade,  on  a  spot 
where,  of  all  the  world,  the  sunset  seems  most  lovely. 
But,  though  Fashion  and  Gaiety  are  to  use  the  road, 
Utility  will  build  it.  West  Point  wants  access  to  the 


IMPROVEMENTS  CONTEMPLATED.    341 

Newburgh  market.  That  thriving  town,  with  its  twelve 
thousand  inhabitants  and  its  streets  of  city-like  shops  and 
provision-stalls,  is  quite  too  provokingly  near  the  mili 
tary  village  and  its  hotels,  not  to  have  a  thoroughfare 
between.  The  Storm-King's  granite-wall  blocks  up  the 
way,  at  present — his  mountain  precipice  rising  bare  from 
the  deep  water  of  the  Hudson— but  this  can  be  soon 
shelved  around  with  money  and  powder,  and  the  remain 
ing  part  of  the  distance  is  but  easy  shaping  of  the  shore 
The  spot  where,  as  Drake  says, 

'•'•  The  moon  looks  down  on  old  Cro'nest, 
And  mellows  the  shades  on  his  shaggy  breast," 

and  all  the  fairy  scenes  of  the  Culprit  Fay's  romance  of 
love  and  its  trials,  will  be  two  miles  down  the  river  from 
Idlewild. 


348  LETTERS      FEOM      IDLEWILD. 


LETTER    LII. 

Deceptive  Grass-Patch—Why  Northerners  love  Home— Tragedy  and  Turkey- 
cock— Suspicion  of  Neighborhood  and  Vindication— Don  Quixote,  the  New 
foundland  Dog— Flippertigibbet,  the  Terrier— My  Mare  and  her  Illness,  &c. 

April  8, 1854. 

THE  donkey  persuasion,  which  I  saw  practised  in  the 
streets  of  Havana,  has  been  very  like  my  own  out-door 
experience  for  the  week  past.  The  poor  animal,  har 
nessed  to  an  over-loaded  dray,  was  tempted  onwards  per 
petually,  with  a  tuft  of  green  cornstalks  kept  just  ahead 
of  him  by  a  negro-boy  on  a  trot— constant  disappoint 
ment,  apparently,  never  lessening  the  charm  of  the  illu 
sory  promise.  With  cough  and  hemorrhage  getting 
quite  ahead  of  me,  of  late,  I  have  looked  across  the 
wintry  valley,  from  my  window,  and  rested  a  feverish 
eye  on  a  half  acre  of  bright  green  grass,  the  perennial 
verdure  of  which  is  kept  up  by  a  living  spring  on  the 
hill-side  above.  March's  last  two  weeks  have  been  down 
right  January,  with  the  addition  of  unmoderating  winds  ; 
but — that  tempting  grass-patch  vowing  it  was  April  out 
of  doors — I  have  every  day  taken  its  word  for  it,  and 


HOME      INCIDENTS      ENHANCED.  349 

every  day  galloped  off  to  the  hills  in  a  disappointed  search 
after  Spring.  Here  we  are,  with  the  month  for  violets 
close  upon  us  ;  and,  across  some  new  ice,  on  a  mill-pond, 
yesterday,  I  saw  a  man  safely  walk  with  a  load  of  rails 
upon  his  shoulder !  One's  lungs  and  one's  hope  for 
Summer  need  the  faith  of  a  Cuban  donkey,  in  such  a 
season.* 

With  an  inclement  world  leyond  the  fence,  the  inte 
rest  upon  the  lesser  world  within  is  brought  to  a  focus — 
and  hence  the  reason,  perhaps,  why  home  thrives  at  the 
chilling  North,  but  is  a  blessing  unknown  in  climes  of 
tropical  luxuriousness.  The  thoughts,  driven  in  from  a 
forbidding  horizon,  nestle  around  threshold  and  hearth. 
In  our  out-doors  family  at  Idlewild,  the  events,  of  late, 
have  thus  been  magnified  in  importance  ;  though,  of  one 
small  tragedy,  involving  the  character  of  the  neighbor 
hood,  I  think  I  should  have  made  historical  mention 
even  with  a  milder  Spring — a  removal  of  unjust  sus 
picion  being  properly  a  matter  above  dependence  on  the 
weather. 

For  some  months,  this  winter,  we  have  had  our  pomp 
and  glory  performed  for  us  by  the  largest  turkey-cock 

*  A  paper  of  the  18th  of  March,  says : 

"  SMILES  AND  TEARS. — At  New  Haven,  on  Thursday  and  Friday  last,  the  cro 
cuses  were  in  bloom.  On  the  Sunday  following,  early  in  the  morning,  the 
mercury  stood  at  only  sixteen  degrees  above  zero." 


350  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE  WILD. 

that  could  be  found  in  North  Carolina— a  present  from 
that  distant  region  to  show  us  what  could  come  of  unre 
stricted  hominy  and  polygamy.  Two  of  his  wives  (widows 
at  present)  accompanied  the  Sultan  ;  and,  really,  as  he 
stalked  through  the  pine-grove  in  the  rear  of  the  house, 
spreading  his  neck-ruff  and  his  enormous  halo  of  a  tail, 
with  his  own  and  a  new-added  Fatima's  around  him, 
it  was  the  poultry  (if  not  the  poetry]  of  the  Arabian 
Nights.  He  neither  walked  like  other  turkeys,  nor 
would  he  lodge  as  they;  but,  retiring  to  the  outermost 
of  our  largest  hemlocks,  overlooking  the  torrent  of  the 
glen,  he  nightly  veiled  his  majesty  in  the  impervious 
darkness  of  the  branches— by  this  haughty  separation 
from  barn-door-fowl-dom  (as  it  afterwards  befellj  sealing 
his  melancholy  fate. 
He  disappeared. 

Now,  the  Sultan  had  been  an  object  of  much  surround 
ing  curiosity.  Living  with  open  grounds — inviting  our 
humblest  neighbors  to  make  free  with  our  wood-paths 
and  gravel-walks — we  have  largely  promulged  his  plump- 
titude  and  glory,  even  catching  and  weighing  him,  to 
ascertain  the  extent  of  the  avoirdupois  portion  of  his 
greatness,  and  telling  all  comers  of  his  one-and-twenty 
mortal  pounds,  superfluities  included.  At  his  sudden 
disappearance,  suspicion,  with  its  usual  injustice,  made 
some  random  surmises.  The  winter  resources  of  the 


A      NEW      ACTOR      INTRODUCED.  35] 

poor  were  getting  low,  particularly  with  the  wholly  sus 
pended  labor  of  the  brick-yards.  Turkey  had  tempted  a 
Czar.  Human  forbearance,  with  such  a  morsel  within  its 
reach,  had  its  limits.  I  attributed  the  theft  myself, 
however,  to  some  of  the  straggling  beggars  who  " squat" 
in  the  mountains  occasionally  and  change  their  neighbor 
hood  as  they  find  it  necessary.  Of  the  honesty  and  good 
will  of  the  poor  around  us,  I  was  made  too  sure  by  the 
friendly  greetings  on  the  road — to  say  nothing  of  the 
better  assurance,  that,  for  years,  no  theft  had  been  heard 
of  in  the  neighborhood. 

But  now  a  quadruped  member  of  our  out-door  family 
becomes  an  actor  in  the  romance. 

One  of  my  neighbors  of  whom  I  see  the  most — an 
uneducated  and  working-man,  but  a  great  reader  and  a 
very  original  and  energetic  thinker — is,  in  the  way  of  his 
business,  a  good  deal  about  in  the  country  ;  and  he  keeps 
me  "  booked  up  "  in  much  that  I  wish  to  know,  as  to  the 
haunts  of  scenery,  the  progress  of  improvements,  the 
culture  of  fruits,  crops,  etc.,  etc.  But  my  friend  Chat- 
field  lately  returned  from  an  excursion,  with  an  account 
of  a  great  beauty  that  he  had  seen  in  the  way  of  a  dog — 
a  dog  which,  in  his  kind  partiality  for  us,  he  thought  quite 
too  beautiful  for  any  home  but  Idlewild.  Enough  said. 
The  farmer  in  the  backwoods  readily  parted  with  a 
"  critter  that  ate  as  much  as  a  man,"  and  down  he  came 


352  LETTERS      FROM     IDLEWILD. 

— a  Newfoundland  pup,  of  glossy  and  raven  blackness, 
joyous  and  buoyant  as  a  bird,  and  almost  as  big  as 
a  pony.  So  excessively  handsome  was  be,  that  there 
was  a  general  acclamation  to  call  him  Count  D'Orsay — 
but,  as,  in  passing  the  mill  of  our  neighbor  Clark,  he  had 
burst  open  the  door,  dashed  in,  and  made  a  furious 
onslaught  upon  the  water-wheel,  to  the  imminent  peril  of 
his  life,  I  thought  there  was  another  celebrity  he  was 
more  like  ;  and  he  now  goes  by  the  name  of  Don  Quixote 
— "Don"  for  shortness. 

To  introduce  the  new  Idlewildian  to  his  water  privi 
leges — the  large  pond  in  the  glen  with  the  cascades 
above  and  below  it — was  the  politic  first  thing,  of  course, 
in  the  way  of  endearing  the  new  home  to  his  Newfound- 
landness.  And  prompt  was  his  appreciation  of  it ;  for, 
with  the  cold  almost  at  zero,  he  bounded  in  and  out  of 
the  torrent,  and  swam  through  the  openings  of  the  ice, 
as  comfortable,  on  coming  out,  apparently,  with  the 
crystals  instantly  forming  on  every  hair  of  his  shaggy 
coat,  as  a  gentleman  in  a  vapor-bath  with  the  dew  on 
his  beard.  Through  pools  and  rapids,  and  around  over 
every  crag  and  precipice,  he  bounded,  swam  and 
scrambled,  to  the  infinite  delight  and  admiration  of  the 
children  ;  till — of  a  sudden — there  was  a  new  wonder  with 
a  tale  to  it.  The  Don  had  come  upon  a  skeleton,  well 
picked  of  every  particle  of  meat,  but  with  the  extremities 


THE      REPROACH      REMOVED.  353 

perfect  in  their  places— the  well-known  head  and  legs  of 
the  missing  Sultan  !  It  was  quite  clear.  Human  diges 
tion  was  not  to  answer  for  him.  The  same  fox  that  had 
carried  off  our  two  white  rabbits — the  traditional  pest  of 
the  glen — had  found  courage  to  climb  to  the  hemlock 
perch  of  the  solitary  turkey,  and  slay  and  drag  him  to 
his  fastness  among  the  rocks— picking  his  plump  carcass 
with  a  completeness  unattainable  by  human  tooth  and 
nail.  THE  NEIGHBORHOOD  STOOD  FREE  OF  REPROACH.  We 
felt  once  more  encircled  by  the  precious  atmosphere  of 
love  and  protection — thanks  to  the  vindicatory  discovery 
of  Don  Quixote. 

I  shall  not  make  the  Home  Journal  of  this  week 
acceptable  in  our  play-room,  however,  without  a  tribute 
to  another  dog,  added  to  this  glorification  of  the  Don — a 
long-loved  play-fellow,  banished  with  many  tears  on  the 
day  of  the  new  arrival.  Flippertigibbet  had  an  incurable 
fault.  He  was  a  smooth  terrier,  of  a  choice  breed, 
imported  by  our  friend  of  Wodenethe,  across  the  river— 
but  though  this  is  said  to  be  the  most  intelligent  kind  of 
dog  in  the  world,  Flip  could  not  be  broken  of  a  trick  of 
seizing  a  strange  horse  by  the  fetlock.  Delightfully  good- 
tempered  with  the  children,  gentle  to  the  kittens  and 
rabbits,  and  patient  of  letting  bipeds  have  their  wilful 
way  in  everything,  he  still  was  most  dangerous  to  the 
horses  of  visitors.  Go,  he  must.  Our  friends  of  the 


354  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE  WILD. 

paper-mill  at  Moodna  had  often  begged  him.  Idlewild 
was  for  his  idling  no  more.  And  the  children  must  walk  to 
the  place  of  banishment  with  their  long-loved  playmate, 
and  see  him  tied  up,  and  leave  him.  Ah,  it  was  bitter 
work — chokings  and  sobbings — and  the  new  dog,  splendid 
as  he  was,  almost  hated  for  taking  his  place.  And  the 
daily  tease,  ever  since,  is  for  permission  to  go  over  to 
Moodna  and  see  Flip.  They  will  never  love  another  dog 
as  well — my  boy  says  he  means  never  to — never  !  So 
begin  partings  and  sorrows  !  Will  the  heart  ache  more, 
for  more  poetic  ones,  by  and  by  ? 

But  there  is  another  sympathy  awake,  in  our  out-doors 
interests  just  now — mentionable  from  its  incidental  bear 
ing  on  the  kind  of  horseback  exercise  which  I  have 
ventured  to  declare  preferable  to  invalids.  My  favorite 
mare,  during  my  recent  visit  to  the  city  (from  grief  at  her 
master's  absence,  I  should  like  to  say,  but,  probably  from 
interrupted  habits  of  work)  was  seized  with  what  the 
veterinary  surgeon  calls  a  colic.  This,  in  a  horse,  the 
reader  may  be  aware,  is  not  a  trifling  matter,  within 
paregoric  reach,  but  a  fit  of  dangerous  sickness  ;  and 
Lady  Jane's  stomach-ache  was  near  ending  in  inflamma 
tion  and  death — reducing  her,  as  it  was,  to  a  very  invalid 
condition,  and  a  cough  almost  as  obstinate  as  her 
master's.  With  my  partial  recovery,  which  I  have  found 
altogether  on  her  back,  and  daily  hours  of  companionship 


NEW      SYMPATHY      AWAKENED.  355 

with  her  for  almost  two  years  (as  spirited  and  fine-strung 
a  creature,  besides,  as  ever  was  a  part  of  a  man's  being) 
I  have  vibrated,  to  this  cough  under  my  saddle,  with 
more  regret  than  to  my  own  cough  above  it,  unable,  at 
present,  to  do  more  than  give  her  a  daily  airing  in  the 
sunshine.  Her  pace — the  truest  and  most  elastic  of  trots 
— was  necessary  to  my  convenience,  however — the  more 
showy,  but  far  too  easy  gallop  of  Archy,  my  wife's 
palfrey,  bringing  me  home  from  a  long  ride  as  unckumed 
as  milk  sent  to  market  in  a  spring-wagon.  I  shall  be 
better  for  the  flaxseed  and  bran  mash  Lady  Jane  i3 
taking,  no  doubt — but  that  cough  of  hers  must  be 
softened  before  my  lungs  are  easy.  I  should  not  live 
long  with  a  canter  among  my  complaints — I  here  record, 
as  a  conviction  of  my  experience  which  may,  perhaps, 
usefully  guide  an  invalid  in  the  purchase  of  a  horse. 


356  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE WILD. 


LETTER  LIII. 

Cedar-Trees  and  their  Secrets— Bird-Presence  about  Home— Our  Night-Owl— A 
Bird's  Claim  on  Hospitality— Difference  between  City  and  Country  Influences- 
Death  in  a  Neighbor's  House,  &c.,  &c. 

April  15,1854. 

WE  are  in  a  dilemma  which  Professor  Mapes  might 
instructively  give  us  a  word  upon  in  his  journal.  What 
seems  to  be  an  eccentricity  in  the  production  of  the  cedar- 
tree  from  seed,  stands  in  the  way  of  a  little  of  my  Spring 
work.  Our  Highland  Terrace,  as  every  one  will  remem 
ber  who  has  threaded  the  winding  roads  of  its  beautiful 
ten  miles  square,  is  studded  thickly  with  noble  cedars 
wherever  they  are  permitted  to  grow— but,  along  the 
stone  walls,  particularly  at  the  sides  of  the  road,  they 
form  avenues  of  evergreen  luxuriousness  which  strike  the 
stranger  as  the  careful  design  of  arboriculture,  rather 
than  any  accident  of  growth.  With  our  long  stretches 
of  new  walls  built  under  the  sides  of  the  precipitous  glen 
roads  of  Idlewild,  and  sustaining  our  terraces  and  slopes, 
I  could  not  afford  the  transplanted  cedar  hedge  which  the 
soil  would  easiest  nourish  for  wall  support,  and  which 


STRANGE     IF     TRUE.  357 

good  taste  would  dictate  for  their  concealment  and  embel 
lishment  ;  but,  with  time  and  patience,  I  thought  we 
could  produce  the  thrifty  evergreens  from  the  seed,  and 
decided  to  sow  them  in  the  present  April. 

Of  my  friends,  the  road-side  boys,  with  whom  I  sedu 
lously  cultivate  an  intercourse  by  the  purchase  of  their 
various  game,  plunder  and  commodities — (gold-fish  and 
slippery-elm,  wild  ducks,  rabbits,  and  sassafras,  and  such 
other  matters  as  employ  the  unschooled  urchin's  industry 
of  idleness) — of  these  my  ragged  acquaintances  on  the 
highway  I  had  bespoken  the  cedar-berries,  early  in  March. 
They  must  be  early  taken  from  the  tree.  The  birds  eat 
them  off  in  a  very  few  days  after  their  Spring  arrival 
from  the  South.  So,  between  the  seed's  coming  to  matu 
rity,  and  the  birds  snatching  it  away,  my  little  harvesters 
were  to  beat  the  trees  with  long  poles  (and  one  of  their 
mothers'  coverlets  spread  beneath),  and  bring  me  the 
gatherings — a  shilling  a  quart — for  the  shade  trees  of  the 
next  generation. 

Rejoicing  over  two  large  urns  full  of  the  berries,  I  was 
waiting  for  the  first  April  rain  to  lay  them  in  their 
trenches,  when  our  venerable  neighbor  S.  came  in,  with 
the  damper  which  I  have  to  submit  to  the  kind  considera 
tion  of  Professor  Mapes.  He  tells  me  that  the  cedar 
berry  must  pass  through  the  body  of  a  bird — exemplified 
by  the  lines  of  cedars  that  spring  up  along  the  walls  and 


358  LETTERS      FROM      IDLEWILD. 

under  the  rocks  and  trees  where  the  birds  perch  them 
selves.  The  seed  thus  auto-guano-fies  for  fructification  ; 
or,  rather,  it  is  entrusted  by  un-laborious  Nature,  to  be 
picked  from  the  tree,  manured,  and  sown  at  a  distance, 
by  a  troop  of  her  apparent  idlers.  That  cedars  are  thus 
scattered  and  propagated,  there  is  no  doubt.  But  is  the 
bird  an  indispensable  medium  ?  Or,  could  we  dispense 
with  him  by  substituting  a  little  boiling  water  for  the 
animal  heat,  and  a  little  guano  (which  is  bird-manure) 
for  the  digestive  fertilizing  ?  This  is  a  more  important 
question  from  the  difficulty  of  transplanting  the  cedar. 
It  is  the  most  unlikely  of  trees  to  live  after  being  dis 
turbed.  If  we  can  neither  transplant  nor  plant  cedars, 
therefore,  but  must  trust  altogether  to  bird-sowing,  it  is 
time  we  were  catching  orioles  and  blue  jays  and  teaching 
them  habits  of  regularity.  We  like  to  choose  where  we 
will  have  their  amiable  bestowings  of  shade-trees. 

I  am  sometimes  a  little  superstitious  about  birds,  not 
withstanding  this  matter-of-fact  view  of  their  transmigra- 
tory  uses.  Now  and  then  a  bird  has  a  presence,  of  which 
I  cannot  but  feel  conscious — like  the  presence  of  another 
human  being.  "We  have  had,  for  a  year  past,  in  the 
grove  of  hemlocks  just  under  the  library  window,  a 
night-owl,  of  most  musical,  but,  at  the  same  time,  most 
melancholy  note,  and  the  members  of  our  family  know 
his  song  as  well  as  one  of  the  household  voices.  He  is 


A      BIRD      VISIT.  359 

still,  during  the  day,  and  his  haunt  of  evergreen  trees 
being  on  the  side  of  the  precipice  over  which  the  cottage 
is  built,  he  is  inaccessible  and  generally  invisible.  I  have 
seen  him  but  once — one  winter  twilight  when  he  happened 
to  have  perched  on  a  leafless  tree — fearless,  motionless, 
and  solemn  enough  !  My  man  Bell,  whom  I  called  to 
look  at  him,  was  eager  to  seize  the  opportunity  to  shoot 
him.  But  there  is  inournfulness  without  boding  of  ill- 
will,  in  his  music,  to  my  ear,  and,  though  it  sometimes 
startles  me  when  it  breaks  in  upon  a  waking  dream  at 
night,  I  have  grown  to  find  company  in  it — a  change 
from  the  other  and  more  joyous  music  of  the  day.  I 
would  not  have  him  killed.  He  may  have  an  errand  to 
sadden  down  thought  to  things  that  were,  else,  less  often 
remembered. 

Last  night,  however,  we  had  a  bird-visit  which  has 
furnished  quite  a  day  of  poetry  for  the  children.  Writ 
ing  in  my  own  room  at  a  late  hour,  I  was  interrupted  by 
a  sudden  flutter  of  wings  against  the  window,  which,  at 
first,  I  thought  an  accident  of  some  bird  startled  from  her 
nest  and  bewildered  by  the  light.  I  looked  out  but  could 
see  nothing.  The  night  was  dark  and  stormy  ;  and 
wishing  the  flutterer  safe  from  all  perils  of  foxes  and  tree- 
toads,  I  resumed  my  pen.  In  a  few  minutes  the  attempt 
to  enter  was  made  again,  and  repeated  upon  the  larger 
window  of  the  adjoining  room,  in  which  slept  my  infant 


360  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE  WILD. 

in  her  cradle.  The  nurse  raised  the  lattice,  and  in  came 
the  stranger — circling  around  and  around  the  cradle,  and 
at  last  alighting  upon  the  curtains  of  the  bed — a  little 
gray  harbinger  of  Spring,  who  sat  and  looked  about  her 
with  the  confidence  of  one  sure  of  a  welcome.  She 
alighted  presently  on  the  ottcman  in  the  window,  and 
was  easily  caught  by  the  hand  and  put  under  an  open- 
braided  basket,  to  be  safe  for  the  night  from  the  un- 
winged  familiars  of  the  house  ;  but,  oh  the  interest  of 
the  story  and  the  bird  together,  for  the  children  in  the 
morning  !  Could  any  mortal  persuade  them  that  there 
was  no  meaning  in  her  visit  ?  They  watched  the  little 
feathered  bosom  with  its  throb  of  watchfulness,  and 
mused  upon  its  midnight  coming  with  child-wonder  ;  and 
it  is  laid  away,  for  life,  among  their  vague  thoughts  of 
things  supernatural.  Such  are  waking  dreams  that 
need  not  be  interpreted  to  be  felt  to  have  a  meaning. 
When  the  little  warbler  flew  forth  again — released  into 
the  morning  air — it  was,  even  to  my  world-worn  belief, 
an  angel  on  his  return. 

The  difference  between  city  and  country  life,  or  their 
respective  wayside  influences  and  sympathies,  has  been 
brought  to  my  mind  very  strongly  within  the  last  week. 
At  the  door  of  a  house  which  I  passed  daily  in  rny  ride, 
some  two  miles  from  home,  I  had  observed  that  the  horse 
of  our  village  physician  was  frequently  tied  ;  and,  though 


SAD     THOUGHTS.  361 

not  acquainted  with  the  family,  I  naturally  stopped  him, 
when  one  day  coming  out  as  I  passed,  to  inquire  who 
was  so  ill.  It  was  an  only  daughter,  a  child  of  eight  or 
nine  years  of  age,  not  expected  to  live  from  hour  to  hour. 
A  fever  had  struck  upon  the  brain.  I  rode  on,  thinking 
of  the  distres  of  such  a  calamity,  of  course,  and  blessing 
God  that  the  blow  had  not  fallen  upon  my  own  home,  not 
far  off.  The  next  day,  passing  again,  I  met  a  neighbor 
just  beyond  the  house,  and  he  stopped  me  to  speak  of  the 
dying  child  near  by.  He  knew  her.  She  was  a  most 
interesting  and  intelligent  little  creature,  he  said,  and  her 
mother's  darling.  He  was  going  to  see  whether  she  still 
lived.  We  parted,  with  his  sad-toned  words  of  the  dread 
ful  loss  it  would  be,  staying  in  my  ears  as  I  went  once 
more  upon  my  way.  Coming  home  two  days  after,  I 
rode  behind  a  wagon  for  some  distance,  and,  by  a  chance 
lifting  of  a  white  cloth  by  the  wind,  I  saw  that  it  covered 
a  child's  coffin.  I  knew  where  it  would  stop.  The  girl 
was  dead.  As  they  turned  in  at  the  gate,  it  was  impossi 
ble  not  to  look  up  at  that  house,  and  know,  by  its  one  open 
window,  in  which  room  she  lay,  and  picture  the  coming  of 
that  fearful  thing  that  was  to  enclose  and  hide  her — the 
laying  her  into  it — the  night  that  must  follow,  with  her 
straightened  limbs  motionless  in  that  still  chamber,  and 
her  pallid  face  waiting  for  that  turned-back  lid  to  close 
upon  it  forever.  To  look  around,  at  my  own  home,  an  hour 

16 


362  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE  WILD. 

after,  upon  a  table  surrounded  by  healthy  and  happy 
children — beloved  ones  still  spared,  still  uncoffincd,  and 
with  a  probable  to-morrow  of  happiness  and  play  instead 
of  that  dread  certainty  of  a  last  going  forth  together  and 
a  return  alone — was  to  thank  God,  once  more,  with  a 
profound  feeling  that  no  levity  could  have  evaded. 

But  houses  are  closer  in  the  city,  and  they  have  their 
deaths  in  them,  like  this.  And  we  pass  daily  along  the 
street,  under  the  windows  of  sick  chambers,  and  close  to 
thresholds  that  lead  in  where  hearts  are  breaking,  and 
beloved  forms  coffined,  and  waiting  to  be  borne  away. 
Nothing  comes  to  our  knowledge.  The  brick  wall  shuts 
in  their  sorrow  and  its  lesson.  Sickness  and  Death  speak 
but  to  those  whom  they  take  away — to  them  and  those 
who  have  loved  them. 

It  is  common  to  compare  city  and  country  life,  by 
advantages  of  health  and  convenience.  This  is  reasonable 
enough  ;  but  the  better  air  that  the  soul  necessarily 
breathes,  where  the  fibres  of  neighborly  recognition  and 
sympathy  have  life  and  room,  should  be  considered,  as 
well.  ^Nature  has  her  sad  but  needed  lessons,  which  she 
gives  us  thus  incidentally  and  unsought,  in  a  life  not  too 
crowded  and  artificial.  You  hear  them  in  the  country, 
always — in  the  city,  almost  never. 


DON      QUIXOTE.  303 


LETTER  LIV. 

A  Newfoundland  Dog  and  his  Nature — The  Beauty  of  a  Brook  as  a  Playfellow 
for  Children— Country  Life's  Opportunity  to  cultivate  Intimacy  with  Child- 
ren — Local  Protection  against  East  Winds — Mechanical  Alleviation  for  Night- 
Coughs,  &c.,  &c. 

April  22, 1854. 

THE  kind  of  dog  that  loves  water  most,  loves  man  most 
— confirming  the  chemical  solution  of  a  human  being, 
viz.  : — "  five  and  a-half  pailsful  of  water  stirred  up  with 
forty-five  pounds  of  carbon  and  nitrogen."  Our  recent 
acquisition  of  a  "  Newfoundland  "  seemed  to  take  but 
the  same  space  of  time  to  become  acquainted  with  the 
pond  in  the  glen  and  the  Five-and-a-half-pailsful  that  he 
was  particularly  to  follow  and  obey.  Idlewild  has  no  in 
mate  more  joyously  at  home.  Certainly  the  happiest  of 
dogs  is  a  water-dog,  as  the  happiest  of  elements  seems  to  be 
water.  And  the  prevailing  temper  of  humanity — which 
chemistry  thus  shows  to  be  hydropathic — is,  I  am  sure,  of 
the  same  natural  sparkle  and  brightness.  Oh,  how  merry 
the  brooks  are  now— in  April  1  How  smilingly  people 
in  the  country  meet  and  exchange  knowledge  as  to  the 


364  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE  WILD. 

April  rains,  and  the  grass  and  grain  starting  with  the 
semi-human  touch  of  those  little  reminding  fingers  ! 

Of  all  playfellows  for  children  there  is  nothing  like  a  run 
ning  brook.  The  childish  love  of  power  may  be  gratified, 
perhaps — they  can  do  so  many  things  with  it,  and  its 
changes  by  rains  and  droughts  are  spoken  of  with  so 
much  interest,  at  the  same  time,  by  those  they  look  up 
to— a  grown-up  affair,  in  fact,  of  which  they  can  have  the 
control.  But  there  seems  something  more  than  this  in 
the  charm  of  it.  They  find  an  accordance  with  their  own 
natures  in  the  way  it  flows  and  sparkles — in  the  careless 
abandonment  to  all  that  can  lead  hither  or  thither— in 
the  brightness  and  music  resumed  after  every  check,  and 
the  joyousness  never  wearying,  never  ending.  With  our 
larger  stream  too  much  of  a  torrent  for  the  greater  part 
of  the  year,  the  smaller  one,  which  dances  into  the  mea 
dow  from  another  glen  (Funnychild  brook  we  call  it),  is 
our  household's  playfellow  of  playfellows  till  it  dries  up 
with  mid-summer  ;  though,  even  then,  its  revisitings  after 
the  heavy  showers  are  hailed  like  a  beloved  schoolboy's 
coming  home  in  vacation.  What  variety  there  is  in  the 
games  with  it,  to  be  sure  !  The  racing  of  boats,  the 
building  of  dams  and  bridges,  the  digging  of  viaducts 
and  canals,  the  gathering  of  wonderful  pebbles  to  bring 
home,  the  chasing  of  minims  and  tadpoles,  the  finding  of 
moss-seats  along  the  banks,  and  tracing  back  of  tributary 


INTIMACY      WITH      CHILDREN.  365 

springs — each  day's  adventures  and  achievements  won 
derful  to  tell.  This  lesser  and  coy  little  glen,  so  out  of 
the  way,  and  open  only  to  the  South,  has  been  the  haunt 
of  Indian  children  before  mine,  probably,  for  my  boy  has 
brought  in  two  of  their  small  stone  hatchets  this  Spring, 
found  in  the  brook  bed  ;  and  some  implement  or  other  of 
their  chiselling,  is  always  turning  up.  Children  should 
be  free  to  play  there  till  the  world  ends  !  The  life-feast — 
begun  with  the  appetite  of  childhood  and  ended  with  the 
satiety  of  age — diminishing  in  zest  and  sweetness  as  we  go 
on — is  nowhere  spread  more  invitingly  than  by  such  a 
brook.  If  I  had  a  home  to  choose  for  a  friend,  there  should 
be  a  brook  in  its  grounds,  whatever  grandeur  of  prospect 
were  given  up  for  it. 

Country  life's  opportunity  to  cultivate  intimacy  with  chil 
dren,  seems  to  me  a  very  important  as  well  as  agreeable 
advantage  over  life  in  the  city.  To  be  able  to  go  out  at 
any  moment  of  the  day  when  most  convenient,  and  join  a 
gay  and  loving  little  troop,  and  take  share  in  their  work 
or  their  play,  unobserved  by  all  eyes,  is  preferable  to  an 
opera,  I  think,  as  a  relaxation  from  care  and  as  a  pleasure 
within  reach.  And  there  is  fresh  air  with  it,  and  exer 
cise  ;  while  its  timeliness  makes  it  serviceable  to  health. 
But  the  degree  to  which  a  man  lives  a  stranger  to  his 
children,  without  it — understanding  neither  their  minds  nor 
their  dispositions — can  hardly  be  understood  by  those 


366  LETTERS      FROM      IDLEWILD. 

who  have  lived  only  in  the  city.  There  is  no  charm,  for  a 
child,  like  the  presence  of  an  elder  person  who  takes  an 
interest  in  his  play  ;  and  he  loves  and  opens  his  nature  to 
those  who  do  so,  as  he  loves  and  is  frank  with  nothing 
else.  To  enter  into  the  excitment  of  his  occupations,  and 
to  listen  and  reply  with  habitual  familiarity  and  earnest 
ness  to  his  questions  and  impartings,  is  to  link  his  soul  to 
you  by  an  every-day  strengthening  of  affection  like  the 
growing  of  a  branch  upon  a  tree.  With  his  memories  of 
these  days — all  golden  and  treasured — the  parent  who  is 
the  kindly  companion  out  of  doors  is  thus  inseparably 
interwoven.  Nature  ordained  such  to  be  the  intercourse 
between  parent  and  child.  It  is  seen  in  the  instinctive 
fondness  with  which  it  is  jumped  to  and  clung  to.  And, 
while  to  daily  life  this  gives  a  charm  and  a  hallowing 
influence,  it  plants  a  flower  of  affection  that  will  bloom 
when  old  age  needs  its  fragrance  of  respect  and  tenderness. 
With  a  Boston-bred  horror  of  east  wind,  I  sometimes 
get  a  "  lively  sense  "  of  a  geographical  advantage  of 
Idlewild,  the  wall  of  mountains  between  us  and  the  east, 
and  the  difference  of  the  weather  where  its  pestilent 
wind  gets  a  chance  a  little  to  the  north  of  us.  Quite 
inveigled  by  the  stillness  and  softness  of  the  air,  yester 
day — the  children,  complaining  of  the  burthen  of  their 
winter  clothes,  and  shaggy  Don  Quixote  keeping  his  coat 
saturated  by  perpetual  plunges  into  the  brook — I  started 


VARIATIONS      OF     TEMPERATURE.  36t 

without  an  overcoat  to  get  to  Newburgh  before  the 
closing  of  the  mail.  I  was  very  warm  with  the  trot  of 
the  first  two  miles.  It  was  like  the  air  of  summer.  At  a 
turn  of  the  road,  however,  I  felt  a  sudden  change  in  the 
atmosphere,  and,  though  riding  before  the  wind,  the 
check  to  perspiration  started  both  our  coughs— my  own 
and  my  convalescent  mare's.  An  accelerated  pace  soon 
quieted  us  ;  but,  in  returning,  the  wind  was  so  raw  and 
disagreeable  for  half  the  way,  as  to  make  me  note  it  for 
one  of  the  most  immediate  transitions  of  weather  I  had 
ever  experienced.  On  arriving  at  the  same  turn  of  the 
road  where  it  had  became  suddenly  cold,  I  felt  the  tem 
perature  grow  summery  again,  and  the  rawness,  which  I 
thought  was  a  sweeping  change  over  the  whole  country, 
evidently  had  its  limit  at  a  certain  mile-stone.  Through 
the  gap  of  the  Highlands,  it  blew  as  through  a  funnel,  and 
the  almost  perpendicular  breast  of  the  Storm-King 
mountain,  was  a  corner  to  the  south  of  which  it  had 
no  reach  or  tempering  influence.  For  the  remaining  two 
miles  it  was  warm  riding,  as  in  June.  For  those  who 
have  a  cough  to  find  a  home  for,  this  geographical  advan 
tage  of  our  neighborhod  may  be  worth  considering. 

At  the  risk  of  being  laughed  at,  by  the  way,  I  think  I 
will  be  devoted  enough  to  the  invalid  cause,  to  mention 
rather  a  funny  discovery  of  mine  in  the  way  of  cough 
alleviation.  Of  cough  itself,  I  have  long  had  an  improving 


368  LETTERS      FROM     IDLE  WILD, 

estimate.  It  is  a  removal  of  the  material  for  diseases  ; 
and  the  medicinal  opiate  which  stills  it  is  calling  off  the 
dog  from  the  unexpelled  enemy.  The  sleep  one  loses  by 

it — an  incidental  aggravation  of  the  cleansing  process is 

the  only  harm  it  can  do,  at  least  till  it  becomes  itself  a 
morbid  irritation. 

But,  lying  in  bed  one  night,  and  wondering  at  the  six 
or  seven  hours  that  Nature  had  been  busy  in  pumping 
out  the  wrong  secretions  of  my  mucous  membrane,  I  fell 
to  speculating  on  its  hydraulic  action.  From  the  fact  that 
the  fluid  which  it  brought  away  was  evidently  turned 
upon  an  irritable  portion  of  the  stomach  or  lungs  by 
the  change  of  posture  in  lying  down,  the  use  of  the  cough 
must  be  to  finish  its  up-hill  progress  to  the  mouth.  It 
was  a  pump,  the  action  of  which  was  but  the  effort  to 
overcome  the  remaining  acclivity  through  a  chest  and 
head  raised  upon  pillows.  Would  it  be  needed  (thought 
I)  if  it  wrere  down-kill  from  the  stomach  to  the  mouth  ? 
Why  not  save  this  hard-working  cough  the  trouble  by 
altering  the  level  ? 

I  leaned  over  the  side  of  the  bed,  and,  with  my  hand 
rested  on  the  round  of  a  chair  for  support,  tried  the 
experiment.  It  aggravated  the  cough  immediately— or, 
rather,  it  so  increased  its  ejection  of  the  mucous  fluid  that 
it  seemed  the  result  of  a  vomit.  But,  I  was  tranquillized, 
and  went  to  sleep  immediately  after.  In  four  or  five 


SUCCESSFUL   EXPERIMENT.        369 

minutes  the  down-hill  cough  seemed  to  do  the  work  which, 
up-hill,  would  have  occupied  hours.  It  is  somewhat  for 
the  same  effect,  perhaps,  that  most  cough  medicines  are 
based  upon  ipecac.  But  the  advantage  of  doing  it  by 
posture  is,  that  the  stomach  is  not  weakened  by  medica 
tion. 

I  have  a  month  or  two  of  experience,  on  which  to 
ground  my  recommendation  of  this  alleviative  to  my  co- 
pulmonary  friends.  I  get  through  with  my  night's  irrita 
tions  of  throat,  now,  habitually,  by  thus  increasing  and 
expediting  them — one  hour's  work,  or,  oftener,  a  few 
minutes  of  violent  and  spasmodic  coughing,  instead  of 
a  slow  and  irritating  bark  for  six  or  seven  hours.  The 
sleep  after  it  has  the  lull  of  rest  after  fatigue.  The 
cleansed  tongue  in  the  morning  shows  that  the  lining  of 
the  stomach  had  its  airing  attended  to,  while  the  lines 
around  the  eyes  read  a  like  certificate  of  reasonable  sleep. 


16* 


310  LETTERS      FROM      IDLEWILD. 


LETTER  LY. 

Snow-Storm  in  April — Newburgh  to  become  a  Seaport — Railroad  from  Hoboken, 
opposite  Chamber  Street,  to  West  Point  and  Newburgh — Dutch  Aristocracy — 
American  difference  from  England  as  to  Living  near  the  Old  Families,  &c. 

April  29, 1S54. 

THE  third  week  in  April,  and  the  best  of  sleighing 
Snow  covers  all  around  us,  averaging  (to-day  April  17th) 
eighteen  inches  in  depth,  say  the  farmers.  It  seems  in  no 
hurry,  either.  This  is  the  fourth  day  of  hard  work  on 
the  road  for  anything  but  runners  ;  and  the  stifled  sleigh- 
bells,  dulled  with  the  heavy  flakes,  make  the  out-door 
music,  instead  of  the  usual  brown  thrushes,  with  their 
"  plant  it — hoe  it — weed  it."  The  cold  north  wind  is  of 
a  most  uncompromising  sharpness — (that  last  participle, 
by  the  way,  looking  so  like  uncompromising,  as  written, 
that  the  printer  is  very  likely  to  commit  a  blunder  with 
an  improvement  in  it).  Our  cedars  seem  to  be  the  prin 
cipal  sufferers.  The  usually  erect  shafts  lie  all  around 
us  with  their  stems  doubled  and  their  tops  touching 
the  ground — an  overlading  with  the  moist  and  heavy 
snow,  which  seems  to  happen  to  them  with  the  seventh 


CHANGES      IN      THE      SEASONS.  371 

year  periodicity  of  calamities  to  men.  Some  of  the  ce 
dars  (like  some  of  us)  recover  their  shape — some  break 
under  the  pressure — many  are  to  be  seen,  in  all  the  coun 
try  around,  with  their  tall  tops  bent  irrecoverably  down 
wards. 

Our  second  week  of  the  present  April  was  like  the 
weather  of  the  same  week  last  year,  mild  and  hazy  as  the 
days  of  the  Indian  Summer.  On  the  same  date  as  this 
cold  snow-fall,  however,  I  find  chronicled,  in  my  out-door 
journal  of  last  year,  a  violent  thunder-storm  and  freshet, 
followed  by  an  opening  and  separating  of  the  yellow  bud- 
tops,  that  was  like  a  sudden  unpacking  and  exposure  for 
sale  of  an  arrival  of  French  gloves.  I  chanced  to  cut 
out  of  a  newspaper  of  last  April,  and  paste  in  my  weather- 
diary,  as  a  remarkable  fact,  the  following  passage  :— 

"  A  gentleman  who  travelled  from  Hampton  to  Kingston,  Ca 
nada,  on  the  16th  instant,  says  that,  on  some  parts  of  the  road, 
the  sleighing  was  as  good  as  if  it  were  in  the  month  of  February." 

This  is  followed,  in  my  note-book,  with  a  record  of  the 
weather  at  Idlewild  when  I  read  it — "April  28,  hot  as 
midsummer  ;  lilacs  in  full  leaf  ;  several  trees  in  full  blos 
som  ;  willows  out  in  leaves  ;  grass  and  clover  up,  and 
Nature  recovering  from  her  winter-swoon  with  a  bright 
smile." 

So  vary  those  solemn  customers,  "The  Seasons,"  that 


312  LETTERS      FROM      IDLEWILD. 

we  rely  upon  with  such  faith  and  corresponding  flannel, 
as  they  come  round  !  I  should  have  confidently  assured 
any  pulmonary  stranger,  inquiring  into  climate  hereabouts, 
that  so  lingering  a  winter  as  that  Canadian  one  was  never 
known  in  the  Highlands  of  the  Hudson.* 

*****.* 
We  are  wide  awake,  in  this  part  of  the  country,  with 
the  idea  of  becoming  a  seaport.  In  the  Report  upon  the 
great  Diameter  Railroad  to  and  through  the  centre  of 
the  State  (from  KEWBURGH  TO  SYRACUSE,  and  so  on  to 
Detroit  and  San  Francisco),  the  Hudson,  thus  far — to  the 
broad  expanse  of  deep  water  spread  out  before  us.  and 
which  is  encircled  like  a  mountain  dock  by  the  Highlands 
— is  put  down  as  an  "  extension  of  the  Bay  of  New  York; 
and  ]S~ewburgh  (continues  the  Report)  is  located  most 
favorably  on  that  Bay,  with  the  finest  of  harbors.  Ships 
of  war  and  vessels  of  every  description  can  lie  securely 
at  anchor  there,  and  moor  at  her  wharves."  And  this 
saves  near  a  hundred  miles  of  river  navigation  (to  reach 
the  railroad  at  Albany),  and  saves  the  forty  days'  diffe 
rence  between  Newburgh  and  Albany  as  to  clearance 
from  ice,  saves  the  shallows  of  the  Overslaugh,  and  sixty- 

*  My  neighbor,  the  joyous  Commodore,  whose  spirits  and  memory  are  un- 
damageable,  tells  me  that  there  was  just  such  a  snow-storm  in  the  latter  part 
of  the  April  of  1834r— or,  rather,  a  heavier  one,  as  it  quite  buried  his  lawn  fence, 
which  was  visible  above  the  eighteen-inch  snow  of  yesterday.  It  seems  a  twen- 
tennial  affair. 


A      GOOD      TIME      COMING. 


373 


four  miles  of  absolute  distance  to  Syracuse.  The  great 
belt  of 'thoroughfare  from  the  Eastern  States  is  to  be 
clasped  to  the  Western  belt  by  this  same  mountain  sea 
port—the  main  road  from  Boston  to  the  West,  which  is 
far  towards  completion,  crossing  the  Hudson  from  Fish- 
kill  to  Newburgh. 

But  Chamber  street,  in  the  City  of  New  York,  is  also  to 
be  extended  to  Newburgh,  to  meet  this  Diameter  road- 
crossing  directly  to  Hoboken,  and  then  following  the  west 
ern  bank  of  the  Hudson— fifty  miles  of  Chamber  street  1  So 
Idlewild  will  be  on  Chamber  street,  four  miles  this  side 
of  Newburgh.  We  shall  thank  Heaven  and  enjoy,  not  a 
little,  the  relief  whfch  this  direct  crossing,  from  our  side 
of  the  river  to  the  centre  of  the  city,  will  give  us— a  re 
lief  from  an  alternative  of  nuisance,  viz. :— the  tedious  horsc- 
car-ing  from  Thirty-first  street  down  town  (from  the  depot 
of  the  Hudson  River  Road),  or  the  hour's  delay  of  jam 
ming,  crowding,  dodging  and  vexing  up  town  (from  the 
Erie  depot  at  the  blocked-up  and  struggling  Babel  of 
Jersey  Ferry).  It  is  perplexing  and  dangerous  work  to 
get  self  and  belongings  to  a  hotel  from  the  arrival-point 
of  either  of  the  two  present  roads.  I  have  lost  temper 
and  baggage  in  the  two  last  attempts  I  have  made  at  it 
—old  traveller  as  I  am,  and  quite  at  home  as  I  ought  to 
be,  in  New  York  and  its  "  dodges." 

It  is  a  curious  thing  that  the  Western  bank  of  tho 


374        LETTERS   FROM   IDLE  WILD. 

Hudson  River,  for  the  first  fifty  miles  from  New  York,  is 
as  much  a  wilderness  at  the  present  moment,  as  many  a 
river-bank  of  equal  length  in  the  far  West.  While  the 
Eastern  shore  is  a  close-linked  chain  of  villages  which 
makes  it  an  extension  of  the  suburbs  of  the  city  for  fifty 
miles,  and  land  all  along  this  thickening  and  crowded 
line  of  railroad  is  selling  for  one  and  two  thousand  dollars 
the  acre,  the  opposite  river-bank  from  Hoboken  to  West 
Point  is  mostly  a  vague  desert,  of  which  the  chance  tra 
veller  knows  nothing,  except  that  Cozzens's  caravanserai 
makes  one  break  in  its  long  stretch  of  terra  incognitia. 
Most  of  the  land  has  been,  hitherto,  comparatively  value 
less.  And  it  has  been  valueless  and  unknown  only  be 
cause  no  railroad  gave  access  to  it.  Yet — within  an  hour 
of  New  York,  and  with  all  the  navigation-advantages 
and  scenery  of  the  Hudson — a  continuation,  as  it  soon  will 
be,  of  Chamber  street  to  West  Point — what  a  magical 
change  is  to  take  place  on  that  fifty  miles  of  river-bank  ! 
Villages  and  country-seats  will  multiply,  we  venture  to 
predict,  as  they  were  never  seen  to  multiply  before.  The 
"Report"  expresses  itself  well  on  the  general  magic  of 
railroad  influence,  to  be  tried  here  with  such  unprece 
dented  opportunity  : — 

"  The  effect  of  railways  everywhere  has  been  the  same,  greatly 
enhancing  all  property  within  their  influences,  and  especially 
within  twenty  or  twenty-five  miles  of  them  on  ^ach  side. 


DUTCH      ARISTOCRACY.  375 

Hon.  D.  D.  Andrews,  in  his  report  to  Congress,  says  : — 'It  is  esti 
mated  by  the  President  of  the  Nashville  and  Chattanooga 
Road  that  the  increased  value  of  a  belt  of  land,  ten  miles  wide, 
lying  upon  each  side  of  its  line,  is  equal  at  least  to  seven  dollars 
and  a  half  per  acre,  or  ninety-six  thousand  dollars  for  every  mile 
of  road,  which  will  cost  only  about  twenty  thousand  dollars  per 
mile.'  '  It  is  believed  that  the  construction  of  the  three  thousand 
miles  of  railway  in  Ohio  will  add  to  the  value  of  the  landed  pro 
perty  in  the  State  at  least  five  times  the  cost  of  the  roads,  assum 
ing  this  to  be  sixty  million  of  dollars.'  •'  The  valuation  of  Massachu 
setts  went  up  from  1840  to  1850,  from  two  hundred  and  ninety 
million  to  five  hundred  and  eighty  million  dollars,  and  by  far  the 
greater  part  of  it  due  to  the  numerous  railroads  she  has  con 
structed.'  Seventy-two  towns,  not  enjoying  railway  advantages, 
did  not  increase  in  population  during  that  period." 

The  extension-quill  of  Chambers  street  for  fifty  miles, 
with  its  feather  of  ten-mile  breadth  of  farms,  will  cipher 
up  the  market  supplies  to  balance  the  other  statistics  of 
New  York  growth  and  commerce  ;  but  there  is  also  a 
very  possible  SOCIAL  RESULT,  which  is  not  likely  to  be  put 
down  with  the  cost  and  profit  of  the  road,  but  which  is 
as  interesting  a  probability  as  it  is  purely  a  national  one. 

From  the  first  settlement  of  the  country,  the  Eastern 
shore  of  the  Hudson  has  been  a  garden  of  Dutch  aris 
tocracy.  It  was  divided  up  into  the  estates  of  "old 
families,"  from  Manhattan  to  Albany— the  Knickerbock 
ers  giving  way  reluctantly  and  grudgingly  even  to  the 


316  LETTERS      FROM      IDLEWILD. 

well-paying  intrusions  of  improvement ;  and,  even  still, 
strengthening  their  fences  around  what  they  can  afford  to 
retain,  and  raising  signs  of  warning  to  trespassers,  with 
the  jealousy  of  dignity  invaded.  Railway  stations  have 
been  built,  contrary  to  their  protest  and  will ;  villages 
have  sprung  up  like  mushrooms  along  the  line  of  the 
opposed  road  ;  country-houses,  school-houses,  and  churches 
have  thickened  like  bubbles  on  a  canal  break — and  yet 
they  rule.  Those  of  the  thousands  of  new  residents 
whose  beautiful  bouses  are  acknowledged  to  "  belong  to 
the  first  people,"  have  propitiated  the  Knickerbocracy.  All 
others  live  isolated  amid  their  fresh  paint  and  shingles. 

But  the  most  American  feature  of  our  time  is  the  suc 
cessful  voting  of  such  aristocracy  to  be  "  old-fogey-ism,7' 
and  the  being  merrily  independent  of  it — anywhere  out 
of  its  immediate  neighborhood.  While,  in  England,  a 
new-comer's  preference  for  the  site  of  a  villa  would  be 
nearness  to  an  "  old  family"  mansion,  in  our  country 
(conveniences  being  equal),  the  preference  would  be  dis 
tance  from  it.  In  the  natural  rivalry  for  consequence, 
every  self-enriched  man  prefers  fair  play  and  a  fresh  start 
to  any  hitchings-on  or  borrowings  by  subserviency.  To 
genial  Geoffrey,  at  Sunnyside,  of  course,  any  home- 
seeker  in  the  Republic  would  like  to  be  a  neighbor — and 
an  honoring  and  deferential  one — but  he  is  a  Knicker 
bocker  and  himself  beside. 


GREAT     CHANGES.  377 

"  Old-fogey-ism,"  however,  is  a  growth  of  centuries. 
While  the  Eastern  bank  of  the  Hudson  has  been  two  hun 
dred  years  in  settling  and  embellishing,  the  Western  bank 
will  start  new  and  overtake  it  in  from  five  to  twenty. 
There  will  be  " first  people"  everywhere.  There  is  no 
help  for  it.  But  it  is  "  a  fair  field  and  no  favor  "  on  the 
Hoboken  shore.  It  will  be  so  rapid  a  settlement  of 
neighborhoods,  too,  that  there  will  be  no  time  for  mould 
to  cover  up  false  claims  to  "  gentility  " — none  impregna- 
bly  the  first  by  grave-yard  iteration.  As  soon  as  this 
extremity  of  the  great  Diameter  Railroad  is  completed— 
as  soon  as  Chambers  street  is  extended  to  West  Point,  for 
its  first  link  of  fifty  miles — the  home-seeking  crowd,  who 
wish  to  be  within  an  hour  of  the  city  with  the  families 
they  are  enriching,  will  divide  up  this  now  desert  river 
side  into  estates  and  villa-grounds,  while  farmers  and  gar 
deners  will  cluster  behind  them  in  the  valleys  and  on  the 
hills — a  Minerva-birth  of  a  rich  and  populous  range  of 
country  without  infancy  or  weakness.  This  will  be  new, 
even  in  our  newest  of  histories.  The  social  contrast  of  the 
two  banks  of  the  Hudson  will  be  without  a  precedent  in 
the  world's  progress — "  old-fogey  ism  "  on  one  side  of  a 
river  exclusively,  and  start-fair-dom  on  the  other. 


LETTERS     FROM     IDLE  WILD. 


LETTER   LVI. 

Birds  suffering  from  Snow— Answer  to  a  Fault-finder— Preparing  for  Old  Age 
by  learning  to  live  with  Nature — Another  Estimate  of  the  Value  of  Farming 
— Common  and  strangely  unvaried  Idea  of  "  a  Villa" — Hints  as  to  choosing 
and  arranging  a  Home  in  the  Country,  &c.,  &c. 

May  7,  1854. 

WE  should  have  a  crop  of  music,  this  summer,  if  the 
sowing  of  dead  birds  would  reproduce  them,  for  they  are 
scattered  over  the  fields  in  great  numbers — starved  and 
frozen  by  the  deep  snow  of  a  third  week  of  April.  We 
set  the  men  to  work  and  cleared  a  portion  of  our  lawn  to 
spread  crumbs  on  a  bit  of  bare  ground  for  the  singers  of 
Idlewild,  and  it  brought  in  such  a  troop  of  little  mendi 
cants  as  was  curious  to  see.  The  snow  still  lies  in  spots 
all  over  the  hills  (April  26th,  to-day),  but  the  grain  looks 
brilliantly  green  beside  it.  The  farmers  say  that  the 
wheat  was  hot-bedded  and  forwarded  considerably  by  the 
week's  covering  from  the  air — Nature,  like  the  Indian, 
finding  warmth  under  a  very  cold  blanket. 

I  am  found  fault  with,  a  little,  by  a  very  pleasant 
writer  in  the  Horticulturist — though  scarcely  with  reason, 


RURAL      LITERATURE.  3t9 

considering  that  I  have  not  yet  occupied  my  premises  a 
year,  and  considering  that  I  have  (among  other  things) 
set  out,  already,  near  a  hundred  fruit  trees.  Thus  runs 
my  homily  : 

"In  all  parts  of  our  country  there  is  a  new  and  constantly 
increasing  disposition  to  shun  the  city  and  seek  the  enjoyments  of 
country  life.  The  question  arises,  What  has  given  our  people  such 
a  love  of  rural  life  ?  Perhaps  our  own  and  other  horticultural 
and  the  agricultural  journals  have  done  as  much  as  any  one  cause 
to  produce  this  result.  Then  the  better  cultivation  of  the  soil, 
better  and  more  tasty  buildings,  improved  stock  and  beautiful 
gardens  and  orchards,  have  increased  the  attractiveness  of  the 
country,  and  thrown  a  charm  around  country  life.  The  log  cabin 
surrounded  with  stumps,  was  bearable ;  it  showed  necessity,  and 
adaptation,  and  gave  an  earnest  of  better  things  in  the  future.  But, 
when  this  was  suffered  to  go  to  partial  decay,  or  substituted  by  an 
unsightly  board  house,  surrounded  with  half-decayed  stumps  and 
tumble-down  rail-fences,  it  was  a  picture  by  no  means  attractive 
to  the  man  of  taste.  With  this  love  of  rural  life  has  sprung  up  a 
rural  literature.  We  have  had  'Willis's  Rural  Letters,'  'Up 
Country  Letters,'  and  now  'Up  the  River,'  with  many  others  of  a 
somewhat  similar  character.  We  wish  these  authors  knew  more 
of  horticulture — that  they  were  familiar  with  fruits  and  flowers, 
and  plants  and  trees — then  their  writings  would  be  more  interest 
ing  and  profitable." 

This  occurs  in  a  review  of  Mr.  Shelton's  delightful  book, 
"  Up  the  River,"  and  he.  is  especially  called  to  account 


380  LETTERS      FROM      I  D  L  E  W  I  L  D  . 

for  his  outlay  of  zeal  and  literature  upon  Shanghai  fowls . 
But  nothing  so  luxurious  has  been  my  hindrance  to  horti 
culture.  Bridging  streams,  damming  torrents,  building 
roads  along  the  shelves  of  precipices,  shaping  lawns  and 
clearing  underbrush,  have  been  my  first  year's  more  press 
ing  occupations. 

But  a  prospective  view  of  farming  and  horticulture,  for 
me,  is  graver  and  fonder  than  the  reviewer  would  be  likely 
to  have  thought  probable.     I  am  looking  forward  to  farm 
ing,  or  learning  to  live  actively  with  Nature  (patient  and 
company-supplying  and  occupation-giving  Nature),  in  case 
old  age  should  befall  me.     With  my  present  loosened  hold 
upon  life,  the  chances  are  against  needing  her  kindly  lap, 
except  to  sleep  under  her  green  apron  without  waking  ; 
but,  with  any  possibility  of  outliving  the  period  of  life's 
fullest  reciprocities,  the  lack  of  this  one  and  (it  seems  to 
rue)  only  refuge  for  the  superfluity  we  become,  would  be  a 
calamity  indeed.     Books  are  something  to  the  old,  but 
the  mind's  relish  lessens  and  shortens  :  they  are  tools  to 
the  weakened  hand— tools  with  which  no  more  work  is  to 
be  done.     Friends  are  something— but,  ah,  the  dread  of 
being  "  in  the  way,"  even  of  those  who  love  us  !     In 
doors,  with  its  open  window  or  fire-side,  is  a  place  of 
repose— but  one  that  grows  more  and  more  like  a  prison, 
as  we  are  thought  "  best  off"  there,  and  "  disposed  of," 
and  at  liberty  to  be  forgotten.     From  old  age  in  the 


REFLECTIONS      ON      FARM      LIFE.  381 

crowded  and  busy  city — old  age  anywhere  unemployed — • 
may  God  in  his  mercy  deliver  me  ! 

But  the  overseeing  of  a  farm,  even  without  labor,  may 
be  one  man's  efficient  employment.  An  habitual  exercise 
of  acquired  acknowledge  in  agriculture — exercise  in 
directing  and  observing  the  culture  of  familiar  soil — is  no 
fatigue.  An  old  man  may  do  it  as  well  as  a  young  man. 
The  master  is  hardly  wanted  for  more  than  to  be  always 
out  of  doors.  His  oversight  secures  industry  and  cor 
rectness,  and  his  mind,  with  its  unvexed  leisure,  plans 
and  arranges  while  he  walks  over  his  fields  and  among 
his  men.  On  his  horse  or  in  his  wagon  he  saves 
one  man's  labor  in  errands  to  the  village,  or  to  the 
blacksmith,  or  to  the  neighbor  for  exchange  or  sale 
of  crops.  Till  crippled,  or  blind,  or  bed-ridden,  he  fills  a 
full  place,  serves  those  who  belong  to  him,  and  cumbers 
no  spot  of  earth,  no  heart  and  no  pocket.  The  farm 
never  tires  of  his  society.  Nature  keeps  prodigally 
responding  with  her  fertility  and  beauty  to  his  demands — 
as  cheerfully  ready  to  bud  and  flower  and  bear  fruit  for 
him  as  for  his  handsomest  grandson.  With  his  laborers, 
and  his  horses,  his  herds  and  his  fowls,  all  needing  him, 
and  calling  for  more  time  or  thought,  if  he  had  it,  he  is 
never  lonely.  And  is  he  anywhere  likely  to  be  so  unen- 
vied,  so  respected,  so  suited  with  tranquillity,  and  so 
mentally  and  bodily  well  ? 


382  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE  WILD. 

Of  the  seventy  acres  that  I  hope  to  be  "out  of  the 
way"  upon  (if,  as  I  said  before,  old  age  should  befall  me), 
thirty  or  so  are  arable,  and  in  terraces  rising  one  above 
another  from  the  meadow  on  the  Hudson.  With  the  one 
or  two  acres  of  black  muck,  five  feet  deep,  in  a  corner  of 
this  meadow,  Professor  Mapes  would  be  delighted.  I 
have  studied  the  lectures  and  essays  of  the  practical  and 
learned  Professor  on  the  use  of  it,  and  my  horses  have 
been,  all  winter  and  spring,  drawing  it  to  the  uplands, 
while  the  rocks  were  being  blasted  to  give  it  clear  space 
and  a  chance  at  the  sub-soil.  We  look  for  a  handsome 
corn  crop  this  year,  to  begin  with, — but  hereafter  we 
humbly  hope  to  "pile  up  the  progress."  It  is  a  matter 
of  sanguine  anticipation  and  preparation,  and  an  excite 
ment  of  most  joyous  alternateness  with  literary  labor. 
Literature,  in  fact,  is  irksome  work  in  comparison — keep 
ing  me  in  doors  many  an  hour  when  things  in  which  I  am 
more  interested  are  going  on  in  the  open  air.  The  days 
when  I  can  be  nothing  but  a  farmer  will  be  days  in  which 
I  shall  be  that  much  more  at  liberty  to  be  happy. 

By  the  fruit-trees  of  all  kinds  that  have  poured  in 
upon  Idlewild,  from  friends  and  readers  at  a  distance,  I 
seem  to  be  generally  booked  for  horticulture, — and  I  shall 
try  my  hand  at  it  certainly ;  though  not  to  the  hindrance 
of  the  more  breadthy  farming  for  which  we  have  the  room. 
The  rich  gentlemen  on  the  "  estates"  around  me  say  that 


CITY     IDEAS     OF    A     COUNTRY     HOME.        883 

nothing  ean  be  made  by  it, — but  their  estimates  are 
rather  to  be  put  down  to  their  fashion  of  haughty-cul 
ture  than  to  the  grain  raising  of  more  humble  industry. 
And  yet  it  is  odd  that  these  wealthy  ruralizers  do  not 
find  farming  well  worth  their  while.  With  house  and 
laud,  "any-how" — barn,  cattle,  and  fowls,  "  any-how" — 
horses  that  need  exercise,  "  any-how,"  and  spare  time  of 
their  own,  "  any-how" — they  have  that  number  of  advan 
tages  to  start  with,  which  need  not  fairly  be  reckoned  in 
the  outlay.  And,  if  the  amusement  were  taken  into  the 
account,  the  price  of  an  opera  box  for  the  season  might 
be  put  down  among  the  profits  of  a  fruit-garden,  over  and 
above  what  were  sold  and  eaten.  Farm  produce  is  rapidly 
rising,  however,  and  that  may  bring  even  "  lordly  manors" 
to  the  plough. 

I  have  often  thought  of  preaching  a  sermon  on  the  one 
stereotyped  idea  with  which  city  people  select  and  model  a 
home  in  the  country.  From  the  numbers  who  call  on  and 
write  to  me  for  information  as  to  the  sites  for  residences 
hereabouts,  I  am,  perhaps,  more  in  the  way  of  knowing 
what  is  usually  sought.  They  all  want  a  villa,  or  its  ca 
pabilities  : — parks  and  lawn  ;  beautiful  view  from  the  por 
tico  ;  barn  and  outbuildings  out  of  sight  ;  gravel-walks 
and  flower-garden,  groves,  avenues,  and  a  fountain.  And 
this  is  all  very  well,  for  those  who  still  retain  their  home 
and  occupations  in  the  city,  and  who  come  to  the  country 


384  LETTERS      FROM      IDLEWILD. 

only  for  three  months  of  idling  in  the  summer.  With 
money  enough  to  tear  down  and  build  up,  such  improvers 
of  the  landscape  are  large  contributors  to  the  general 
welfare,  and  should  be  thanked  and  admired.  But  is  there 
no  other  class  of  seekers  of  new  homes  in  the  country  ? 

My  own  sympathy  is  rather  with  a  place  that  looks  like 
a  farm,  an  old  one.  A  new  building  is  rather  a  draw 
back.  I  would  rather  take  any  house,  of  whatever  shape, 
and,  by  a  few  very  easy  and  un-costly  alterations,  make  it 
look  picturesque-ly  homely.  Additions  to  the  edges  of  the 
roof  to  make  them  project,  stoops  of  the  largest  kind  to 
the  side  and  front  doors,  perhaps  a  portico  where  comfort 
and  taste  would  combine  to  wish  one,  and  frames  and 
trellises  for  vines  and  creepers,  are  simple  and  cheap 
changes  that  would  make  the  most  angular  and  un 
sightly  house  look  pleasantly  enough.  And  (without 
going  so  far  as  the  Havanese  nobility,  who  keep  their 
carriage  in  their  front  parlor),  I  like  to  see  barn  or  stable 
close  enough  to  group  in  with  the,  house  and  orchard.  The 
guest  should  see  the  shed  he  can  tie  his  horse  under,  and 
the  tree  or  bush  where  he  can  find  the  plums  or  the  ber 
ries.  And  it  should  be  evident  to  any  passer  by  that  the 
owner  can  go  to  his  barn  a  dozen  times  a  day,  without 
hat  or  boots,  and  shake  down  hay  for  his  cattle,  or  har 
ness  his  own  wagon  for  a  drive.  Xo  man  either  looks,  or 
is  independent  in  a  country  home,  who  has  not  his  stable 


TNEXPERIENCE  LEADS  TO  ERROR.    385 

completely  under  his  eye — himself  the  first  to  know  when 
a  horse  wants  shoeing,  or  a  wheel  wants  greasing,  and 
hindered  never,  and  in  no  manner  of  thing,  by  the  absence 
or  negleetf ulness,  or  unwillingness  of  the  "  hired  man.'7 
For  me,  aside  from  the  convenience  of  it,  there  is  a  cer 
tain  "  animal  magnetism  "  which  makes  the  company  of 
my  horses  and  cows  very  agreeable. 

Yet  there  are  those  who  have  lived  all  their  lives  among 
brick  walls  and  sidewalks,  and  who,  finding  themselves 
able  to  give  their  children  a  home  in  the  country,  and 
yielding  to  a  long-suppressed  yearning  of  nature  to  allow 
to  themselves  this  luxury  at  last,  are  still  likely  to  make 
irreparable  mistakes  from  inexperience  and  lack  of  coun 
sel.  Such  a  one  would,  perhaps,  build  his  new  cottage 
on  the  summit  of  a  bare  knoll  for  the  sake  of  the  view, 
rather  than  under  the  shelter,  and  with  the  background 
of  a  wood,  ready  grown.  He  might  cut  down  trees  be 
cause  they  stood  irregularly,  or  forget  how  the  spring 
water  or  the  winter  winds  were  to  be  managed,  or  neglect 
altogether  to  foresee  the  incidentalnesses  of  up  hill  and 
down,  rain-washings  to  the  road,  frost-heavings  to  walls, 
etc.,  etc.,  etc. 

In  talking  to  one  of  my  neighbors  the  other  day,  I  told 
him  he  ought  to  make  a  profession  of  giving  a  start  to 
exactly  this  class  of  new-comers  to  the  country.  It  is 
all  very  well  for  the  wealthy,  who  purchase  estates  and 

It 


386  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE  WILD. 

build  villas,  to  send  for  a  landscape-gardener,  and  pay  high 
for  a  plan  of  grounds,  and  the  layings  out,  plantings  and 
cmbellishings,  such  as  taste  may  dictate,  without  reference 
to  cost.  But  counsel  that  is  both  cheaper  and  more  prac 
tical  than  this,  is  wanted  by  the  home-seeker  of  more 
moderate  means.  The  neighbor  I  speak  of  (Mr.  Chat- 
field)  is  one  of  a  kind  that  should  belong,  like  a  carpen 
ter  or  blacksmith,  to  every  neighborhood,  for  this  very 
use  and  employment.  He  is  an  uneducated  (or  rather  a 
self-educated)  and  working  man.  But  he  has  passed  a 
life  of  rural  industry  and  economy,  is  a  most  successful 
raiser  of  fruit,  and  a  skilful  gardener,  knows  everything 
about  buildings  and  farms,  and  their  wants  and  conve 
niences;  and,  to  the  very  best  of  practical  good  sense,  he 
adds  a  taste  and  a  knowledge,  and  a  love  of  scenery  that 
are  quite  above  his  condition  in  life.  For  a  moderate 
compensation,  I  presume  (though  I  write  this  entirely 
without  his  consent  or  knowledge),  Mr.  Chatfield  would 
go  and  pass  a  week  or  more  at  a  spot  chosen  for  a  resi 
dence,  and  tell  all  its  capabilities,  foresee  all  its  difficul 
ties,  direct  its  location  of  buildings  and  garden,  and 
planting  of  trees  and  orchards,  and,  in  short,  give  the 
wisdom  beforehand,  which  could  otherwise  be  got  only  by 
a  costly  and  somewhat  mortifying  experience.  A  begin 
ner  at  anything  z?i-doors — singing  or  painting,  beard-grow 
ing  or  poetizing — may  be  his  own  teacher  and  adviser, 


FAILURES      SOON      KNOWN.  387 

and  keep  his  failures  to  himself.  But  the  choosing  and 
arranging  of  a  home  is  an  out-door  matter,  of  any  mis 
takes  in  which  the  "people  round"  are  most  annoyingly 
aware. 


388  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE WILD. 


LETTER    LYII. 

Remarkable  Land-slide — Woman  nearly  Buried — Our  Gateway  Stopped — 
Ravages  of  Floods — Embellishment  of  a  Neighbor's  Grounds  by  a  Land 
slide,  &c.,  Ac. 

May  13, 1854. 

THERE  are  odd  surprises,  occasionally,  to  wake  us  out 
of  sleep ;  but  one  of  my  nearest  neighbors  was  aroused 
in  the  dead  of  last  night  (April  29)  with  a  remarkable 
interruption  to  her  dreams — a  quince-tree  from  her  gar 
den  entering  her  bed-room,  followed  by  a  neighboring 
hill  !  The  cottage,  at  the  same  time,  began  to  move 
from  its  foundations  ;  the  chimney  and  rafters  tumbled 
in ;  the  weight  of  the  earth  which  was  pouring  down 
upon  her  bed  crushed  it  to  the  floor  ;  and  her  "  old  man," 
who  slept  in  the  room  above,  came  through  the  ceiling. 
As  the  reader  will  have  easily  divined,  it  was  the  over 
whelming  of  a  cottage  by  one  of  the  land-slides  of  the 
late  unprecedented  ruin. 

But  these  first  waking  surprises  of  Mrs.  S.  were  fol 
lowed  by  rather  a  terrible  half-hour.  In  bed  with  her 
was  her  daughter-in  law,  whose  nearness  to  a  critical 


PERILOUS     POSITION.  389 

period  was  the  occasion  of  sharing  her  room ;  and,  by 
the  sounds  of  gasping  and  choking,  she  discovered  that 
this  poor  young  woman  was  buried  under  the  liquid  mass 
of  earth  which  was  sweeping  them  away.  With  the  bed 
broken  down,  the  floor  lifted  to  a  siope,  and  the  ruins 
falling  in  around  her,  she  was  guided  through  the  terrible 
confusion  and  darkness  by  nothing  but  the  sound ;  but 
she  found  the  head  of  the  struggling  sufferer  at  last,  and 
was  only  able,  with  her  hands,  for  a  long  time  (she  says 
"over  an  hour")  to  scratch  away  the  mud  from  her 
daughter's  mouth  and  keep  it  clear  enough  to  enable  her 
to  breathe.  The  weight  of  the  earth  accumulating  on 
the  coverlid  effectually  prevented  the  extrication  of  the 
buried  woman,  and,  as  the  neighbors  were  long  in  being 
summoned  thither  in  the  dead  of  the  night,  the  struggle 
probably  seemed  as  interminable  as  it  was  awful. 

You  might  almost  throw  a  stone  from  Idlewild  lawn 
upon  the  roof  of  this  cottage,  and,  of  course,  such  an 
event  was  a  stirring  morning's  news  to  us.  In  my  daily 
ride  along  the  beach,  I  pass  their  door  ;  and,  from  way 
side  chat  with  the  "  old  man,"  as  he  chopped  wood  or 
hunted  up  his  vagrant  cows  and  pigs,  I  could  not  but 
feel  the  calamity  to  have  happened  to  one  of  ourselves. 
Sympathy,  notwithstanding,  however,  there  was  a  ludi 
crous  expression  about  the  Sunday  morning  look  of  the 
little  building — standing,  corner-wise  to  the  road,  with 


390  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE  WILD. 

its  after-part  cocked  in  tlie  air,  the  peach-tree,  which  had 
checked  its  course  apparently,  sustaining  its  intoxicated 
posture  with  difficulty,  and  a  quince-tree  leaning  with  its 
buds  out  of  the  front  window  !  The  tipsy-looking  cot 
tage  was  one  of  half  a  dozen  humble  dwellings  built 
under  the  lofty  river-bank  which  rises  to  the  general  level 
of  the  country  ;  and  the  two  or  three  trees  before  it, 
and  the  small  garden  behind  it,  filled  the  narrow  slope 
between  the  water's  edge  and  the  well-grassed  ascent. 
Other  buildings  were  carried  away  by  the  slides,  a  mile 
farther  down,  but  no  lives  were  endangered  that  I  could 
hear  of. 

One  of  our  own  hills  of  Idlewild  took  a  walk  at  the 
same  time  ;  and,  by  stopping  to  take  breath  in  the  middle 
of  the  road,  has  so  completely  altered  the  shape  of  our 
nearest  corner  to  Newburgh  that  we  shall  be  compelled 
to  remove  our  main  gate  and  make  a  new  entrance  alto 
gether.*  It  is  a  pity,  because  it  shuts  us  off  from  an 
avenue  of  full-grown  hemlocks,  and  forces  us  to  follow 
the  public  road  outside  of  them.  No  small  outlay  of 
contrivance  and  labor  has  been  expended  to  wind  in  the 
approach  by  those  beautiful  and  stately  evergreen  trees 
— now  to  be  exchanged  for  a  new  and  unshaded  gate 
through  an  open  wall !  I  must  own  to  finding  this  hard  to 
bear — much  harder  than  such  casualties  as  labor  will  re- 

*  This  gate  has  since  been  restored. 


DESTRUCTION   BY   FRESHETS.      391 

store.  That  one  of  our  glen  bridges  was  washed  away, 
our  upper  dam  torn  to  pieces,  an  acre  of  green  meadow 
covered  with  gravel,  a  beautiful  river-slope  stripped  of 
its  sod,  and  unsightly  channels  cut  in  the  brook-banks, 
right  and  left,  are  lesser  and  more  remediable  damages, 
for  which  we  may  easier  find  comfort.  Our  neighbors  at 
the  Moodna  paper-mill,  who  are  damaged  to  the  amount 
of  two  or  three  thousand  dollars,  and  will  not  get  to 
work  again  probably  for  five  or  six  weeks,  tell  us  we  have 
"  got  off  pretty  well !" 

It  will  be  a  month  before  some  of  our  choked-up  public 
roads  will  be  re-opened,  and  the  swept-off  bridge  across 
the  Moodna  (a  mile  from  this),  and  others  along  the  va 
rious  streams  around  us  will  be  much  longer  in  rebuilding. 
But  the  worst  of  it  is  the  continuance  of  sluice-way  that 
will  follow  every  one  of  these  slide-brakes  in  the  hills. 
The  raw  sand-and-clay  chasms  are  too  precipitous  to  hold 
vegetation,  or  even  to  be  re-sodded,  if  the  expense  of  that 
could  be  borne.  They  are  eye-sores  and  trouble-makers 
henceforward.  We  shall  see  what  June  verdure  and 
foliage  will  do,  to  out-conspicu-fy  the  ugliness  of  them. 

It  has  been  a  great  flood  ;  but  that  heavy  snow  of  the 
third  week  of  April  did  the  work — -just  holding  on  to  a 
previous  flood  (as  one  of  my  men  says)  till  this  one  could 
hook  on  to  it.  The  trouble  was  the  country's  being  called 
upon  to  get  rid  of  two  floods  at  once.  Every  inch  of 


392  LETTERS     FROM      IDLEWILD. 

ground  was  saturated  with  water — snow  having  held  it 
back  unmelted  for  a  week — when  this  heaviest  of  Spring 
rains  commenced.  The  streams  were  already  at  their 
highest  when  the  new  freshet  began.  (And  so  accumu 
late  and  give  way  hearts  and  patiences  sometimes  !) 

The  newspapers  (May  2d)  have  come  in  with  accounts 
of  disaster  by  flood,  showing  that  we  were  bearing  but 
our  share,  this  time,  with  the  country  at  large.  This  has 
a  certain  consolation  in  it,  for  our  previous  water-spouts 
and  avalanches  have  been  so  local,  that  I  had  felt  the  ro 
mantic  picturesqueness  of  Idlewild  to  be,  like  beauty  to 
a  woman,  a  dangerous  gift,  after  all.  Burthens  are  les 
sened  by  more  shoulders  under  them.  One  of  nay  wealthy 
neighbors,  by  the  way,  is  indebted  to  a  land-slide  for 
quite  an  embellishment  to  his  grounds.  His  lawn,  skirted 
with  magnificent  forest-trees,  abutted  directly  over  the 
Hudson — a  landscape  table-land,  like  the  level  summit  of 
a  mountain  pushed  to  the  water's  edge.  A  portion  of 
this,  with  ten  or  twelve  full-grown  mouarchs  of  the  wood 
quietly  settled  thirty  feet  nearer  to  the  river  level,  with  its 
vast  oaks,  elms,  and  tulip-trees,  standing  perfectly  un 
altered  in  their  erectness  ;  the  grass  unbroken  between 
them  and  around  their  roots,  and  the  general  aspect  of 
the  greensward  exactly  the  same.  The  whole  area  now 
forms  the  lower  steppe  or  terrace,  graduating,  very  beauti 
fully  to  the  eye,  the  descent  to  the  beach  below.  A  pri- 


ONE    MAN'S    LOSS    ANOTHER'S    GAIN.    393 

vate  wood-road  ran  under  the  precipitous  bank,  and,  curi 
ously  enough,  the  descending  mass  acted  like  the  weight 
of  water  in  a  pipe-curve,  lifting  this  road,  which  lay  forty 
feet  beyond,  to  about  the  height  of  ten  feet  above  its  for 
mer  elevation — the  dropped  lawn  not  having  changed  its 
place,  except  by  vertical  descent.  "The  hills"  are  cer 
tainly  making  a  move  in  consequence  of  water's  getting 
the  upper  hand,  though  whether  the  Maine  Liquor  Law 
will  claim  it  to  be  a  "  leap  for  joy,"  we  are  waiting  for 
some  orator  to  let  us  know. 


394  LETTERS     FROM     IDLEWILD. 


LETTER  LVIIL 

Immense  Freshets— Islands  in  Solution— Curious  Slides— Brickyards  along  the 
Hudson — Irish  Laborers,  and  the  Contrast  between  them  and  Natiye-Born 
Country  People— The  Infusorial  Cemetery,  &c.,  &c. 

May  20, 1854. 

THE  Hudson,  just  now,  is  thicl;  with  yellow  earth — the 
vagrant  dilution  of  hundreds  of  honest  farms,  inveigled 
away  from  their  homes  in  the  mountains  by  the  Lurley  of 
the  waters  ;  but,  unlike  the  Mississippi,  which  is  the 
pathway  of  the  same  sort  of  truants,  our  North  River 
has  no  Delta  at  its  outlet  to  receive  and  reclaim  the  wan 
derers.  Usually  as  clear  as  crystal,  the  Hudson  has 
been,  for  the  few  days  since  this  unprecedented  succession 
of  floods,  a  current  of  creamy  thickness,  and  so  closely 
strewn  with  brush  and  flood-wood,  besides,  that  the  fleets 
of  steamers  which  are  doing  the  work  of  the  interrupted 
railroads,  have  been  inconveniently  impeded.  What  a 
pity  that  such  a  group  of  lovely  islands  in  solution  should 
be  passing  New  York  and  Hoboken,  without  a  precipi 
tate  to  "dump"  them  along  the  Jersey  shore!  Thou 
sands  of  acres  of  fertile  mountain-soil  passing  those  Jer 
sey  "flats,"  unthought-of  and  unarrested!  And  it  is  the 


AN      EXTEMPORISED      BRICK- YARD.  395 

best  part  of  the  mountains,  too — the  mellow  stream- 
slopes  and  leaf-packed  meadows  within  reach  of  the  tor 
rents.  Whole  banks  of  May-flowers  and  forget-me-nots 
have  gone  from  Idlewild — and  daises  and  violets,  that  we 
had  waited  for,  and  found,  and  loved,  this  very  April! 
Well,  the  sea,  with  its  vast  forgetfulness,  is  welcome  to 
them.  Or,  they  can  be  sweet  on  some  far  isle  where 
their  roots  may  be  thrown,  without  telling  who  has  loved 
them  before — only  there  will  be  wasted  sunshine  for  a 
while,  where  the  warm  rays  used  to  find  them,  and  awake 
their  fragrance  and  beauty. 

Nature,  like  "great  minds,"  which,  Emerson  says, 
"  have  nothing  to  do  with  consistency,"  is  sometimes  as 
funny  as  she  is  disastrous  with  her  ravages.  While  la 
mentably  disfiguring  the  grounds  of  one  of  my  neighbors, 
she  has  slipped  money  into  his  pocket,  hand  over  hand — 
not  only  disclosing  a  bank  of  the  richest  blue  clay,  by  a 
land-slide,  but  furnishing  the  brick-yard  where  it  could  be 
worked,  by  extending  a  platform  of  earth  and  trees  into 
the  river!  From  what  was  a  straight  gravel  beach  under 
a  wooded  hill,  a  few  days  ago,  there  is  now  a  projecting 
point  of  thirty  feet,  with  the  trees  on  it  to  "  log  it  in"  for 
a  wharf,  and  the  loose  brush  ready  mixed  with  the  "  fill 
ing  in "  of  mud.  Directly  behind  and  above  it  is  (in  the 
place  of  the  loveliest  of  groves  shading  the  river  bank)  a 
broad  hill-face  of  most  unadulterated  blue  clay,  worth 


396  LETTERS      FROM      IDLEWILD. 

much  more  for  bricks  than  the  scenery  was  worth  for 
beauty.  The  promontory,  by  the  way,  of  which  this  is  the 
river  front,  is  probably  the  most  commandingly  picturesque 
spot  on  our  portion  of  the  Hudson.  It  was  once  a  moun 
tain  island,  just  off  the  shore  at  the  mouth  of  the  Mood- 
na;  and,  to  Idlewild,  it  is  the  middle  ground  of  our  river 
landscape — half  a  mile  of  Moodna-water  between  us  and 
its  grove-shaded  point,  and  the  two-mile  width  of  the  Hud 
son  extending  beyond.  With  the  large  mansion  upon  the 
summit,  and  the  park-like  slopes  of  woodland  and  lawn, 
it  forms  the  loveliest  feature  of  the  northern  view  from 
our  windows — "  to  be  continued,"  fortunately,  as  the 
brick  development  is  on  the  opposite  side.  Our  friend 
and  neighbor  mourns,  as  we  do,  the  inroad  upon  the  love 
liness  of  his  home — but,  of  the  blocks  of  New  York 
houses  that  might  now  be  dug  out  of  his  side,  he,  of 
course,  pays  the  rent  while  refusing  to  sell  the  clay  to 
the  brick-makers;  and  it  becomes  a  question  between 
grounds  less  disturbed,  or  more  property  for  children. 

Brick-yards  are  our  eye-sore,  in  the  scenery  of  the 
Highlands.  They  will  be,  till  the  bank  of  blue  clay 
along  the  edge  of  the  river  is  entirely  exhausted,  leaving 
a  terrace-bank,  more  suited  for  improving  and  beautifying 
than  the  original  one.  For  the  present — say  a  forty-year 
hegira  of  bricks — the  traveller  is  expected  to  be  blind  to 
our  "  lower  story  "  of  landscape,  just  as,  in  Yankee  archi- 


BRICK-YARD      LABOR.  397 

lecture,  the  model  of  the  house  is  entirely  independent  of 
the  "  kitchen  basement."  You  do  not  trouble  your  cri 
tical  taste  about  the  cellar  of  an  Italian  palace  !  Very 
well.  Then  merely  allow  us  Americans  the  very  trifling 
additional  indulgence  of  having  our  cellar  open  in 
front. 

In  the  drives  along  the  upper  road  (one  to  two  hundred 
feet  above  the  river  )  we  overlook,  of  course,  the  brick- 
hives  along  the  water's  edge,  and  among  my  wealthy 
neighbors  I  find  there  has  lately  been  a  "  strike  "  as  to 
"  commuting  "  any  longer  upon  the  lower  turnpike — all 
combining  to  ignore  it,  disgusted  with  the  increasing  ob 
structions  and  disfigurements  ;  and,  with  time  and  car 
riage-horses  to  spare,  preferring  to  make  a  habit  of  the 
longer  and  cleanlier  upper  route  for  their  daily  drive  to 
Newburgh.  But,  unsightly  as  they  are,  these  miles  of 
brick-yards  are  studies  in  their  way.  It  is  a  loose  and 
lively  Irish  fringe  to  our  quiet  American  neighborhood  of 
sagacious  and  thrifty  farmers.  If 'a  Yankee  condescends 
to  be  among  them  at  all,  it  is  in  the  capacity  of  teamster 
or  "boss" — brick-yard-ing  labor  for  day  wages  being  a 
peg  below  the  pride  of  a  boy  born  in  the  country.  Paddy 
likes  it  because  there  are  so  many  of  the  b'hoys  to  work 
with  him — farm-labor  being  quite  too  lonely  for  his  liking 
— and  because  he  is  at  home  in  the  mud  ;  and  there  is  no 
restraint  on  his  dress,  manners  or  morals  ;  and  rainy 


398  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE  WILD. 

days  and  Sundays  are  "  rale  holidays,"  with  no  barn-work, 
nor  cattle  to  look  after,  nor  other  hindrance  to  his  going 
to  Newburgh,  where  there  are  promiscuous  attractions. 
If  not  the  cleanest  and  best  behaved  of  wayside  popula 
tion,  however,  the  Irish  are  a  variety  that  comes  in  well 
for  contrast  and  invigoration  to  the  musing  and  half  con 
scious  picture  formed  upon  the  eye  during  a  drive.  In 
the  stout  legs  and  arms,  rosy  cheeks  and  honest  propor 
tions  of  the  women  who  belong  to,  and  trudge  with  them, 
or  lodge  near  and  group  around  with  wash-tubs  and  chil 
dren,  there  is  a  supply  for  the  lacking  bulk  and  bloom  of 
our  American  race,  which  it  is  a  comfort  to  see  on  the 
same  day  with  the  slender-limbed  intelligence  of  farmers7 
daughters,  and  the  pale-faced  pride  and  respectability  of 
farmers'  sons.  It  is  an  admirable  graft — the  Hiber 
nian  stock  upon  ours — for  it  acclimates  and  improves 
admirably,  if  left  to  itself  for  a  generation  or  two.  Ire 
land  is  the  California  whence  comes  the  specie  for  our 
health-currency  ;  and  the  precious  ore,  though  unsightly 
till  refined  and  coined,  looks  fairer  than  other  dirt  when 
its  value  is  remembered.  And,  may  I  confess,  at  the 
same  time,  to  a  certain  relief  in  a  mile  or  two  of  jolly  and 
careless  faces,  such  as  the  Irish  on  our  lower  road  to 
Newburgh,  after  the  miles  of  unsmiling  responsibility  of 
countenance  and  persevering  anxiety  of  demeanor  through 
which  one  runs  a  gauntlet  of  low  spirits  before  arriving 


AN   INFUSORIAL   CEMETERY.      399 

at  that  part  of  the  country  ?     Every  car  in  our  Ameri 
can  train  is  so  sure  to  be  a  locomotive  ! 

I  see  that  one  of  the  daily  papers  mentions  the  line  of 
mud  discoloration,  from  the  river  freshets,  as  extending  far 
out  into  the  harbor  of  New  York — a  descent  of  country 
cousins,  or  fresh  water  and  its  belongings,  which  must 
have  temporarily  driven  the  finny  loafers  of  dock  and 
wharf  very  nearly  out  of  sewer-reach  arid  soundings.  At 
the  meeting  of  salt  water  and  fresh,  there  is  an  infusorial 
cemetery  (Professor  Johnson  tells  us),  the  myriads  of  in 
sects  which  belong  to  each  realm  of  the  element  dying 
with  the  touch  of  the  other,  and  precipitating  at  once  to 
the  bottom — thus  producing  the  twenty-five  per  cent,  of 
animal  remains  found  in  the  mud  of  all  Deltas  at  the 
mouth  of  rivers.  Whereabouts  is  this  death-line  on  the 
Hudson  ?  The  water  is  brackish  even  as  high  as  West 
Point  ;  but  there  must  be  a  broad  margin,  a  mile  or  two 
in  extent,  where  the  full  tide  of  the  sea  meets  the  perpe 
tual  down-flow  of  the  stream — an  insect  "  valley  of  the 
shadow  of  death"  hitherto  unrequiemed  and  un-named. 
Insects  are  universalists,  I  believe,  and  there  must  be  a 
heaven  for  both  "  beyonds" — Sunnyside,  perhaps,  the  Ely 
sium  opening  from  the  Infusorial  Cemetery  of  the  Sea. 
Mr.  Irving  should  be  "  in  spirits,"  all  the  time — or  per 
haps  the  down  tide  and  the  up  impregnate  the  air  by 
turns  with  dirge  and  Hallelujah.  Tell  us  of  your  unac- 


400  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE WILD. 

countablencss,  dear  Geoffrey— your  tears  and  smiles  which 
you  have  never  yet  attributed  to  the  rise  and  fall  of  the 
river  at  the  edge  of  your  lawn — and  let  us  trace  to  these 
unconscious  influences  of  another  world,  to  this  change 
ful  poetry  of  entomology,  the  sad  and  gay  thoughts  we 
find  woven  in  your  style's  sweet  alternation. 

From  my  window,  as  I  write,  I  can  see  a  hill-side,  from 
which  an  acre  at  least  of  thickly  up-springing  young 
cedars  have  slid  away  with  the  freshet — a  contribution  of 
monumental  trees  which  might  well  be  stopped  at  the 
death-line  of  the  Hudson,  and  planted  round  its  cemetery 
border. 


VEGETABLE     DIGNITY.  401 


LETTER  LIX. 

Distinctions  of  Rank  in  Vegetables— Splendid  Outburst  of  Spring— Chivalry 
among  Fowls — A  daily  Steamboat  Luxury  for  this  Neighborhood — Philosophy 
of  Visits  to  the  City,  &c.,  &c. 

May  27, 1854. 

THE  potatoes  are  going  into  the  ground  like  reluctant 
dollars  this  week— the  farmer,  with  the  late  marvellous 
rise  in  the  price,  and  the  increasing  uncertainties  of  the 
crop,  feeling  as  if  he  were  making  an  investment  of 
more  ready  money  than  he  can  spare,  and  for  a  return 
that  is  too  skittish  for  his  peace  of  mind.  The  once 
humble  potato,  meantime,  that  was  a  staple  necessity, 
the  stand-by  for  the  farmer's  table  and  cattle-trough, 
is  now  a  promoted  luxury,  hasty-pudding  and  corn  cakes 
occupying  its  familiar  place.  I  noticed  that  my  farm- 
tenant  yesterday  spoke  of  the  potato-garden — that  same 
modest  acre  having  been  hitherto  known  as  the  potato- 
patch.  So  bud  and  flower  distinctions  and  titles,  even 
among  the  vegetables  of  a  republic  ! 

We  have  had  a  week  of  heavenly  Spring  (the  middle 
of  May),  and  the  belated  flowers  and  leaves  have 


402  LETTERS      FROM      I  OLE  WILD. 

overtaken  the  season  with  a  jump.  The  fields  and 
woods  are — oh,  how  beautiful  !  With  such  mornings, 
noons  and  evenings  coming  round,  one  is  reminded 
of  those  globe-animalcula3,  idle  and  blest,  who,  by 
mere  and  unconscious  revolving,  are  brought  in  contact 
with  what  they  require.  Happiness  seems  but  the 
time  of  day,  in  such  weather — so  sure  to  come  and 
so  naturally  making  a  part  of  everything.  To  breathe 
and  be  abroad  is  heaven,  in  country-life  just  now. 

With  the  sudden  outburst  of  this  belated  Spring, 
the  foliage  is  of  a  singular  brilliancy  of  tint,  in  the 
valleys  around  us.  This  morning,  May  20,  shows  like 
a  gala-day  of  the  emerald,  so  festal  is  the  dazzling 
brightness  of  the  green,  and  so  joyous  is  the  effect 
of  the  new  leaves  among  the  bronze-tinted  tassels  of 
the  evergreens.  A  thousand  tables  set  with  alabaster 
cups  could  not  glitter  more  festively  in  the  sun  than  the 
level-spread  blossoms  of  the  dogwoods,  spotting  the 
acclivities  of  Idlewild  just  now,  and  with  the  rainbows 
of  wild  flowers  scarfing  and  carpeting  the  grove  and 
meadow,  the  merriment  in  the  fuller  streams,  the  bustle 
of  the  building  birds,  and  the  intoxicating  vitality  of  the 
air,  it  seems  as  if  one  must  oneself  revivify  and  grow — 
somehow  or  somewhere — to  belong  to  this  continuation 
of  Eden.  Such  Springs  cannot  be  all  for  vegetation. 


THE     LADDER     OF     EXISTENCES.  403 

There  must  be  a  sow^Summer  to  come  after  a  May  like 

this wakened  by   its   warmth    and   music,   color    and 

fragrance— even  if  the  root-reaching  juices  of  the  earth 
are  not  for  our  dulled  pulses  and  fibres. 

I  had  an  amusing  proof,  this  morning,  however,  that 
we  belong  to  a   world   of  many  spheres* — all  life  by 

*  With  the  chance  that  the  reader  may  not  be  altogether  "  booked  up  "  as  to 
the  ladder  of  existences  of  which  ours  is  but  a  middling  round,  I  will  quote 
what  the  Rev.  Mr.  Graham,  in  his  Lecture  on  Spiritual  Manifestations,  says  of 
the  steps  above  us,  though  my  present  comment  is  upon  a  manifestation  of  a 
step  ~bdow : 

"  There  are  seven  spheres  in  and  around  the  earth,  in  which  man  is  said  to 
pass  his  existence  preparatory  to  entering  into  heaven.  The  earth  is  the  first : 
from  this  man  passes  by  death  to  the  second,  which  is  above  the  atmosphere,  a 
height  of  six  miles.  The  third,  still  above,  occupies  about  forty  miles  in  height  ; 
the  fourth,  yet  further  off,  occupying  a  space  much  larger ;  and  so  on  in  geome 
trical  ratio  until  you  come  to  the  seventh  sphere,  whence  we  are  all  eventually 
to  pass  by  a  kind  of  second  death  into  heaven.  In  these  different  spheres 
dwell  the  spirits  of  the  departed,  studying  the  alphabet,  if  need  be,  learning 
arithmetic,  and  so  on,  up  to  fluxions,  if  they  have  not  studied  these  on  earth. 
They  have  their  pet  dogs  and  birds  with  them.  They  are  all  clothed  as  upon 
earth ;  if  rich,  according  to  taste.  One  supernal  theologian  tell  us  that  many 
of  the  females  wear  a  plain  robe  confined  at  the  waist  by  a  girdle.  A  large 
portion  of  them  wear  their  hair  in  flowing  ringlets.  Men  dress  as  their  taste 
inclines ;  some  in  Oriental  style,  with  turbans  and  Persian  trousers  ;  others  in 
the  fashionable  attire  of  the  day.  Most  of  them  wear  all  of  the  beard.  They 
but  wish  for  dress  and  have  it.  They  are  taller  or  shorter  than  when  on  earth 
as  they  may  choose  to  be.  They  cannot  well  see  through  opaque  bodies  as 
walls,  nor  beneath  the  earth's  surface  ;  nor  can  they  pass  through  solid  sub 
stances,  or  a  small  space.  They  want  doors  and  windows  opened  to  pass 
through,  and  seldom  deign  to  descend  a  chimney.  We  have  no  knowledge  of  a 
spirit  having  visited  any  of  the  planets." 


404  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE  WILD. 

no  means  responsive  to  the  same  promptings.  With  a 
half-hour  to  spare,  I  had  set  it  to  thought-music  by 
opening  "  Rural  Hours "  (that  charming  book  by  the 
daughter  of  Fenimore  Cooper),  and  the  following  passage 
particularly  arrested  my  attention  : 

W  e  American  women,  certainly,  owe  a  debt  of  gratitude  to 
our  countrymen  for  their  kindness  and  consideration  of  us  gene 
rally.  Gallantry  may  not  always  take  a  graceful  form  in  this  part 
of  the  world,  and  mere  flattery  may  be  worth  as  little  here  as  else 
where  ;  but  there  is  a  glow  of  generous  feeling  towards  women  in 
the  hearts  of  most  American  .men,  which  is  highly  honorable  to 
them  as  a  nation  and  as  individuals.  In  no  country  is  the  protec 
tion  given  to  woman's  helplessness  more  full  and  free in  no 

country  is  the  assistance  she  receives  from  the  stronger  arm  so 
general — and  nowhere  does  her  weakness  meet  with  more  forbear 
ance  and  consideration.  Under  such  circumstances,  it  must  be 
woman's  own  fault  if  she  be  not  thoroughly  respected  also.  The 
position  accorded  to  her  is  favorable  ;  it  remains  for  her  to  fill  it 
in  a  manner  worthy  of  her  own  sex,  gratefully,  kindly,  and  simply ; 
with  truth  and  modesty  of  heart  and  life  ;  unwavering  fidelity  of 
feeling  and  principle,  with  patience,  cheerfulness,  and  sweetness 
of  temper — no  unfit  return  to  those  who  smoothe  the  daily  path  for 
her." 

Laying  down  the  book  at  this  complimentary  tribute 
to  our  sex,  I  stepped  out  upon  the  lawn  to  speak  to  a 
gardener  at  work  on  one  of  the  gravel  walks,  and  found 
the  man  leaning  on  his  spade  and  watching  a  domestic 


AN      UNNATURAL      CONFLICT.  405 

drama  of  somewhat  different  feather.  A  large  turkey- 
hen,  the  widowed  survivor  of  a  pair  that  had  been  sent 
us  from  Carolina,  was  just  getting  the  upper  hand,  in  a 
fight,  with  a  powerful  dung-hill  cock.  It  had  been  a  long 
skrimmage,  the  man  said,  and  he  had  "  never  seen  a  ske- 
thing  show  such  pluck  " — but,  just  as  the  compliment  was 
uttered,  a  new  combatant  appeared.  The  widowed  bird 
had  been  coupled  with  a  Northern  turkey-cock,  at  the 
disappearance  of  her  Carolina  mate,  a  few  weeks  before, 
and  this  second  husband  now  mingled  in  the  affray,  tak 
ing  sides,  however,  with  the  rooster  that  was  well  nigh 
beaten,  and  against  his  own  wife  and  kind,  the  mother  of 
a  troop  of  his  own  well-begotten  turkey-lings,  feeding  at 
a  little  distance.  It  was  an  atrocity  that  I  had  thought 
too  mean  for  an  instinct — quite  below  barn-yard-fowls, 
at  least,  who  strut  and  have  a  sense  of  ostentation  as 
spouses.  But  there  raged  the  fight — a  husband  and  a 
bully  against  a  crestless  female — who,  still,  proved  to  be 
a  match  for  them,  and  was  showing  no  sign  of  knocking 
under  when  I  ran  to  her  rescue.  It  was  a  pleasure  to 
have  read  Miss  Cooper's  tribute  just  before,  and  remem 
ber  that  there  was  a  different  inspiration,  in  the  American 
air  (for  male  breathing)  a  sphere  or  so  higher.  Accord 
ing  to  Theodore  Parker,  this  marks  our  rate  of  progress 
in  civilization.  He  says :- 


406         LETTERS   FROM   IDLE  WILD. 

"  The  savage  is  always  and  everywhere  a  lazy  animal ;  but  yet 
he  must  get  work  done,  and,  for  this  purpose,  he  subdues  woman, 
and  makes  her  work  for  him.  The  first  thing  that  man  conquered 
and  annexed  to  himself  was  woman.  The  superiority  of  man  lies  in 
three  things— First,  in  having  the  largest  brain ;  second,  a  stron 
ger  arm  ;  and  third,  his  harder  heart.  In  this  triple  superiority, 
man  compels  woman  to  do  his  drudgery.  He  kills  a  moose,  or  a 
deer,  or  a  large  fish,  and  the  woman  must  drag  it  home,  cook  and 
prepare  it.  In  all  savage  lands,  woman  is  the  slave  of  man.  The 
boor  of  Germany  rides  home  on  his  horse,  and  the  daughter  and 
wife  walk  home  beside  him." 

*  *  *  *  #  # 

The  lady  inhabitants  of  this  neighborhood  hare  a 
summer  convenience,  which  (partly  by  chance,  perhaps) 
is  more  fitly  arranged  for  their  luxurious  enjoyment,  as 
to  time  and  management,  than  would  seem  to  belong  to 
such  a  shortcomingdom  as  this  our  life.  Breakfast 
leisurely  over,  somewhere  about  nine  o'clock,  a  joyous 
bell  rings  across  the  bay,  and  the  largest,  swiftest  and 
most  sumptuous  of  all  the  day-boats  on  the  river, 
the  steamer  Alida,  comes  swooping  down  the  mirrored 
shore-line  from  JSTewburgh.  You  are  invited  (madam!) 
to  go  to  town  in  a  floating  palace,  pass  four  hours 
in  Broadway,  or  where  you  please,  and  be  brought  back 
through  the  Highlands,  in  the  enchantment  of  sunset. 
As  you  go,  the  shadows  of  the  scenery  will  be  thrown 
with  artistic  effect  towards  you,  for  it  is  morning,  and  the 


LADIES'   PRIVILEGES.  40'7 

boat's  course  is  South  and  East.  As  you  return,  the 
same  accommodating  shadows  will  fall  with  rosy  tints  of 
twilight,  the  other  way.  Both  ways  you  will  see  the 
river  in  its  utmost  beauty.  There  is  an  upper  and 
a  lower  forward-deck,  luxuriously  provided  with  seats, 
where  the  motion  of  the  boat  secures  a  breeze,  though 
the  river  be  breathless.  Or,  there  is  an  elegant  public 
saloon  and  a  private  one,  daintily  cushioned  and  mirrored, 
where  you  may  read  or  chat,  with  the  comforts  of  your 
own  drawing-room  at  home.  On  the  chance  of  your 
wanting  all  your  time  in  the  city,  so  that  it  might 
not  be  convenient  to  dine,  a  hot  lunch  is  served  a  half- 
hour  before  reaching  the  wharf,  and  you  may  start  for 
your  shopping  or  calls  with  the  freshness  rather  of  town- 
gadders  than  of  country-folks  who  have  come  sixty  miles 
down  the  river.  The  stopping-place  being  the  foot  of 
Robinson  street,  directly  opposite  the  centre  of  the 
Park,  you  may  be  at  Stewart's  in  five  minutes,  without 
hackney-coach  or  confusion.  At  4  P.  M.,  you  return  to 
your  floating-palace,  and  glide  away  towards  your  home 
again  ;  and,  while  you  pass  the  first  twenty  less  pic 
turesque  miles,  perhaps,  in  lying  down  upon  the 
cushioned  seats  of  the  private  saloon,  recovering  from 
your  fatigues,  the  ten-mile  labyrinth  of  the  Highlands 
is  getting  ready  to  present  you  with  a  panorama — 
a  sunset  extended  through  a  river-tangle  of  zig-zag-ing 


408  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE  WILD. 

mountains,  the  splendor  of  which,  if  seen  for  the  first 
time,  would  make  any  day  memorable.  From  the  class 
of  people  whom  it  mainly  accommodates — the  occupants 
of  the  villas  on  the  Hudson,  and  the  summer  visitors  at 
West  Point  and  Cozzen's — the  Alida  seems  rather  to  be 
making  an  excursion  of  gaiety  than  a  passage  of  con 
venience.  Leaving  Idlewilcl,  as  I  did,  a  day  or  two  ago, 
after  breakfast,  and  getting  home  to  tea — chatting  with 
a  large  party  of  friends  either  way,  and  seeing  an 
enchanting  variety  of  effect  in  river-scenery — it  seemed 
scarce  credible  to  me  that  I  had  also  travelled  one 
hundred  and  sixty  miles,  and  taken  advantage  of  four 
hours  for  leisurely  attention  to  my  business  in  the 
city.  "  If  Mahomet/7  says  a  Persian  poet,  "  had  lived 
long  enough  to  know  the  pleasures  of  Shiraz,  he  would 
have  prayed  Grod  to  make  him  immortal  there."  And, 
without  wishing  to  be  an  immortal  passenger  in  the 
Alida,  I  doubt  whether  there  was  ever  half  such  an 
immortality's-worth,  as  her  trip  up  and  down  of  a 
summer's  day  (Broadway  and  all)  offered  to  the  sinners 
and  shoppers  of  Shiraz. 

One  goes  to  the  city,  at  least  an  individual — a  lump 
of  sugar  or  a  slice  of  lemon — but  the  feeling  of  being 
suddenly  lemonaded  into  insignificance,  on  plunging  into 
that  busy  stir,  is  common,  I  suspect,  to  those  who 
land  from  a  steamboat  and  walk  towards  Broadway. 


FIGS      AND      PHYSIOGNOMIES.  409 

Without  caring  to  be  more  seen  or  thought  of  by 
others,  there  is  still  a  valuable  sense  privilege  in  having 
an  atmosphere  of  one's  own — the  difference  between 
a  fig  in  a  drum  (city  life),  and  the  purple  and  gold 
fig,  as  it  gives  fragrance  and  drops  honey  from  (country 
life)  the  tree.  It  would  be  a  question,  of  course,  whether 
the  world  is  large  enough  to  let  every  fig  have  room 
to  show  shape  and  color.  Most  men  can  only  come 
to  the  thumb  and  finger  of  their  destiny  by  the  close 
packing  where  they  are  thought  of  by  the  thousand. 
But  the  instinctive  preference  for  the  space  and  liberty  to 
be  an  individual,  is  at  the  bottom  of  the  arrived-passenger 
feeling,  spoken  of  above,  and  I  presume  the  general 
dignity  and  self-respect  of  the  human  race  are  increasing 
with  the  improvements  in  steam  and  railroad  which 
are  putting  country  life  within  reach  of  a  greater 
number.  Figs  and  physiognomies  alter  alike,  as  to 
beauty  and  character,  by  too  close  indiscriminateness 
of  pressure — though  the  meaner  look  is  sometimes 
more  valued  as  being  more  metropolitan. 


18 


410  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE  WILD. 


LETTER  LX. 

Newness  of  Junes— Effects  of  the  Eclipse— Cows  embarrassed— Nature's  Ca 
prices—Visit  to  West  Point— The  Salute  to  the  Visiting  Committee— Cadets' 
Mess-Room—Professor  Weir  and  the  Gallery  of  Drawings— Parade— Stature 
of  the  Present  Class  of  Cadets,  &c.,  &c, 

June  10, 1S54. 

THE  poet  said  to  his  -  — th  lady-love,  what  one  has 
felt  like  saying,  perhaps,  to  every  June  as  it  came  round, 
but  certainly  to  this  : — 

"  I  feel  that  I  have  loved  before, 
But  worshipped  ne'er  till  now." 

So  prodigally  beautiful  and  newr  and  so  beyond  April 
expectation,  has  been  the  outburst  of  foliage  and  flowers, 
that  the  inferiority  of  previous  Junes  seems  the  only  way 
to  account  for  the  intoxicating  novelty  of  the  impression. 
Nature,  clad  previously  in  textures  of  silk,  seems  now  in 
almost  overburthened  sumptuousness  under  "velvets  of 
three-pile."  We  must  guano  our  dictionary  to  chronicle 
such  a  summer  as  should  follow. 

The  two  twilights  of  an  afternoon,  that  we  had  last 


EFFECTS      OF      THE      ECLIPSE.  41 1 

week,  proved  that  Nature  can  scarce  give  us  a  surfeit  of 
her  beauty.  The  regular  "  close  of  day  "  was  a  resplen 
dent  one  in  itself,  but  it  was  like  the  luxury  of  an  encore 
in  an  opera,  following  so  immediately  upon  the  bird-roost 
ing  twilight  of  the  eclipse— a  sun  of  full  brightness  briefly 
intervening.  Chancing  to  be  taking  one  of  niy  favorite 
rides  during  the  progress  of  the  phenomenon,  I  was  glad 
of  the  opportunity  to  see  a  large  extent  of  familiar  scenery 
in  a  new  light— the  Hudson  arid  its  Highlands  dramatised, 
as  it  were — for  the  effect,  throughout  the  gradual  obscu 
ration,  was  that  of  an  atmosphere  of  pictorial  contri 
vance,  such  as  a  Claude  Lorraine  might  give  to  a  copy  of 
the  landscape  from  memory.  Occasionally  in  England  I 
have  seen  something  of  the  same  tender  middle-tint  in 
the  first  decline  of  the  afternoon  ;  but,  to  our  unpictu- 
resque  transparency  of  climate,  the  sweet  room  thus 
given  to  the  imagination  is  rare.  The  shadows  were  un 
certain,  the  distances  and  elevations  very  much  increased, 
and,  the  river  being  tranquil,  each  mountain  was  doubled 
by  reflection,  and  looked  like  a  cloud  peaked  above  and 
below.  I  shall  remember  it  like  some  wonderful  paint 
ing. 

Among  the  lesser  influences  of  these  disturbed  paral 
laxes  and  serni-diamaters,  I  noticed  that  neighbor  Smith's 
cows,  who  gipsy  up  and  down  two  or  three  miles  of  road 
during  the  day,  started  for  home  with  full  faith  in  twi- 


412  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE  WILD. 

light  No.  1,  doubtless  very  much  perplexed  at  seeing  the 
sun  blaze  forth  again  over  their  hope  deferred  swill  at  the 
door-step.  It  saved  the  old  man  his  usual  tramp  to 
"  hurry  home  them  critters,"  though  the  milk-pail  might 
show  that  there  was  a  loss  of  a  half-pint's-worth  or  so, 
of  grass-plunder  prematurely  suspended.  The  birds  of 
all  kinds  I  observed  were  in  quite  a  flurry — their  flights 
short  and  disturbed,  and  their  notes  expressive  of  dis 
tress.  On  the  population  along  the  road  the  effect  was 
less  reverential  than  I  should  have  anticipated.*  A  bit 
of  smoked  glass  was  in  almost  every  hand,  but  the  jok 
ing  and  fun  were  universal — partly  caused,  perhaps,  by  the 
drolly  emphasized  and  accented  look  of  the  general  physi 
ognomy,  every  nose  of  man,  woman,  and  child,  for  five 
miles,  it  seemed  to  me,  having  a  black  tip  from  a  rub  of 
the  lamp-smoke.  A  jolly  Irishman,  at  one  of  the  brick- 

*  Of  the  popular  impression  of  an  eclipse,  eactly  two  hundred  years  ago, 
Francis  Berneir,  thus  writes,  quoted  by  Southey : — 

"  Some  bought  drugs  against  the  eclipse,  others  kept  themselves  close  in  the 
dark  in  their  caves  and  their  well-closed  chambers,  others  cast  themselves  in 
great  multitudes  into  the  churches;  those  apprehending  some  malign  and  dan 
gerous  influence,  and  these  believing  that  they  were  come  to  the  last  day, 
and  that  the  eclipse  would  shake  the  foundations  of  nature  and  overturn  it, 
notwithstanding  anything  that  Gassendis,  Robervals,  and  many  other  famous 
philosophers  could  say  or  write  against  this  persuasion,  when  they  demon 
strate  that  this  eclipse  was  of  the  same  nature  with  so  many  others  that  had 
preceded  without  any  mischief,  and  that  it  was  a  known  accident,  foreseen 
and  ordinary,  which  had  nothing  peculiar." 


ALL     (MVIXG      TO      THE      ECLIPSE.  413 

yards,  twitched  off  his  hat  as  I  came  along,  and  raised  a 
great  laugh  among  the  Paddies  by  taking  a  look  through 
it  at  me — but  he  forgot,  that,  for  an  eclipse  of  the  Sun 
or  any  other  gentleman,  there  must  be  a  lady  (fair  Dian) 
between  him  and  the  world.  And,  by  the  way  (to  ask  a 
Woman's-Rights  question),  is  it  a  mark  of  the  superiority 
of  our  sex,  or  not,  that  the  Sun  may  have  four  eclipses 
a  year  and  the  Moon  only  two  ?  What  does  it  argue, 
that,  among  celestial  bodies,  as  in  good  society  on  earth, 
they  are  thus  twice  as  strict  with  the  ladies  ? 

As  a  nail  whereon  to  hang  some  of  our  unaccountable- 
nesses,  an  eclipse  is  useful.  It  is  owing  to  the  eclipse,  of 
course,  that  the  oak  and  cedar  seem  to  have  a  disease  this 
year — buds  blighted  and  both  families  of  trees  leafing  very 
reluctant  and  poor.  The  hemlocks,  on  the  contrary,  with 
their  unprecedented  profusion  of  glittering  tassel-tips, 
look  as  if  gold  had  rained  on  them.  Corn  has  had  no 
chance  with  such  a  cold  Spring — potatoes  and  turnips, 
on  the  other  hand,  profiting  greatly  by  it.  There  are 
those  who  have  had  unexpected  blessings,  those  who  have 
had  unexpected  calamaties — all  alke  owing  to  the 
eclipse.  According  to  Gloster,  in  King  Lear,  however, 
it  is  only  evils  that  can  be  thus  accounted  for.  He 
says  : — 

"  These  late  eclipses  in  the  sun  and  moon  portend  no  good  to 
us  :  though  the  wisdom  of  nature  can  reason  thus  and  thus,  yet 


414  LETTERS      FROM      IDLEWILD. 

nature  finds  itself  scourged  by  the  sequent  effects.  Love  cools, 
friendship  falls  off,  brothers  divide  :  in  cities,  mutinies  ;  in  coun 
tries,  discord  ;  in  palaces  treason,  and  the  bond  crushed  between 
son  and  father." 

We  certainly  have  had  more  violent  freshets,  slides,  tem 
pests,  and  irregularities  of  nature,  hereabouts,  within  the 
last  Winter  and  Spring,  than  the  oldest  inhabitant  re 
members  the  like  of.  Almost  every  operation  of  season 
and  weather  seems  to  have  been  either  stronger  or  duller 
than  usual — hardly  anything  in  the  old  familiar  way. 
But  the  wonderful  rapidity  with  which  June  has  over 
taken  and  surpassed  the  lagging  season,  within  a  week, 
shows  that  the  compensating  influences  are  at  work.  The 
eclipse  is  over. 

#  *  *  *  *  * 

Fifteen  minutes  from  Idlewild  to  West  Point  at 
9  A.  M.;  by  the  swift  Alida,  on  her  way  to  Xew  York 
— the  grand  annual  review  of  the  Cadets,  with  their 
military  music  and  cannonading,  for  the  Government 
Board  of  Visitors,  to  come  off  at  twelve— the  Alicia,  on 
•her  return,  to  bring  us  home  through  the  Highlands, 
at  sunset,  in  fifteen  minutes  of  still  more  splendid  parade 
of  sky  and  water — and  all  on  the  first  of  June,  that  one 
day  of  the  year  when  it  was  never  known  to  rain  since 
the  memory  of  man — no  !  there  was  no  refusing,  to 
a  bold  little  pleader  of  six  years  old,  the  promise  that  I 


THE     QUAKERS    AND    MARTIAL    GLORY.       415 

"  would  go."  He  was  happy.  But  that  was  not  all  of 
it — for  so  was  I.  The  sweetness — oh,  the  sweetness  ! 
of  an  excuse  to  be  a  child  again  for  a  summer's  day. 

As  usual,  June  the  1st  dawned  like  a  morning  of 
Eden.  It  was  one  of  those  days  when  the  curse  of 
Adam's  fall  (industry  or  no  happiness)  was  suspended,  or 
altogether  optional.  In  such  weather  there  was  no  need 
to  have  anything  to  do.  To  be  was  enough.  Calm, 
cloudless,  elastic,  pleasant  in  the  sunshine  or  out  of 
it,  balmy  to  breathe  and  brilliant  to  look  around — 
may  we  say,  unprofanely,  that  we  trust  God  for  the  like, 
after  death  ?  It  would  be  almost  impious,  it  seems  to 
me,  to  pray  for  "  another  and  better  world"  on  such  a 
morning. 

The  Alida  came  along,  loaded  with  Quakers  on  their 
way  down  to  the  Annual  Meeting  of  their  Sect  of  Peace 
— a  chance  parenthesis  to  my  day  of  military  curiosity, 
which  I  felt  to  be  a  (?)  as  to  the  propriety  of  thus 
sowing  a  filibuster-seed  in  the  imagination  of  my  boy. 
Fifteen  minutes  is  short  time  to  repent,  however.  We 
were  at  the  wharf,  with  a  soldier  on  guard,  before  I  had 
looked  the  idea  fairly  in  the  face  ;  and  the  triumph  of 
military  engineering,  which  had  given  us  a  new  road, 
like  the  Simplon,  up  the  front  of  a  cliff,  made  its  begin 
ning  of  the  day's  warlike  captivation.  That  new  pier 
and  its  road,  joining  the  highway  of  the  river,  instead  of 


416  LETTERS      FROM     IDLEWILD. 

the  old  wharf  so  inconveniently  round  a  corner,  are  in 
accordance  with  the  open-door  spirit  of  the  day — the 
policy  at  West  Point  having  hitherto  been,  to  entrench 
and  seclude  it  from  public  access.  The  proposed  road 
along  the  river-bank  to  Newburgh  (to  bring  the  military 
town  within  reach  of  a  market,  and  open  its  parades  to 
the  drives  of  the  surrounding  country)  was  smothered  by 
Secretary  Marcy  on  the  caterpillar  policy,  I  believe  ;  but 
we  look  to  him  for  its  resuscitation,  now  that  he  is 
through  with  his  chrysalis,  and  thinks  a  little  more  far- 
sightedly,  on  the  wing. 

An  omnibus  did  the  climbing  for  us,  to  the  summit- 
level  of  the  parade-ground  ;  and,  from  that  omnibus  door, 
as  we  gradually  ascended,  the  view  down  through  a 
crowd  of  mountains,  upon  a  river  with  a  fleet  of  sloops 
threaded  by  the  flying  Alida  *  *  *  * 

But  we  came  to  see  soldiers,  and  I  will  try  to  say 
nothing  of  scenery.  Only — if  one's  unlimited  delight  may 
speak  a  word  as  it  goes  to  its  dungeon  of  silence — the 
reader  should  run  no  risk  of  dying  without  a  visit  to  this 
spot  of  Nature's  most  wanton  extravagance  of  beauty. 
Leave  no  love  nor  wonder,  no  tenderness  nor  taste  at 
home,  dear  reader  !  You  will  want  all  you  can  be,  do, 
borrow  or  imagine,  for  exquisite  and  enthusiastic  delight 
and  appreciation,  at  West  Point  on  a  summer's  day.  Oh, 
the  *  *  *  * 


THE      SALUTE.  41  f 

And  now  that  the  key  is  turned  on  that  intoxicated 
gentleman,  let  us  have  a  cool  look  for  a  cadet,  or  some 
thing  with  which  Nature  has  nothing  to  do.  This  range 
of  cannon  (the  passing  officer  tells  us)  is  to  fire  a  salute, 
presently,  for  the  Board  of  Visitors  on  their  way  to  the 
public  buildings.  And  here  conies  a  file  of  cadets  from 
the  college,  to  man  the  guns,  and  we  will  take  a  seat  upon 
this  big  rock  and  see  the  manceuvering. 

The  tight,  little  gray  coats,  with  their  epauletted  cap 
tain,  had  a  few  minutes'  exercise  in  wheeling,  advancing 
and  loading  the  pieces  of  ordnance,  and  then  the  nine 
gentlemen  in  plain  coats  whom  the  powder  was  to  honor, 
were  seen  coming  from  the  hotel,  escorted  (and,  as  a 
matter  of  mere  visibility,  contradictorily  eclipsed)  by  the 
Colonel  in  command  and  the  military  Professors.  The 
heavy  guns  were  handled  like  playthings  by  the  cadets, 
nothing  going  wrong  but  two  or  three  of  the  percussion- 
caps  that  missed  fire — possibly  from  opposite  politics,  to 
the  Nebraskan  party  under  salute.  (Or,  the  percussion 
might  have  been  Democratic  enough,  and  the  powder 
Whig — a  failure  of  a  gun  to  go  off  by  disaffection  of 
party,  which  would  never  occur,  of  course,  with  shot  in 
the  charge  or  anything  to  hit.)  The  echoes,  I  presently 
discovered,  were  the  answers  to  those  pulled  strings  for 
which  my  wondering  little  companion  gave  the  Captain 
the  most  credit.  They  reverberated  back  from  the 

18* 


418  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE  WILD. 

mountains  in  three  peals,  the  last  coming  from  the  Storm 
King  with  a  long,  low  roll  like  the  most  distant  thunder 
(as  measured  by  the  watch  of  a  gentleman  who  stood 
near  us,  two  seconds  between  the  firsfr  peal  of  echoes  and 
the  second,  ten  between  the  second  and  the  third). 
Those  cannons'  voices  impressed  me  curiously — as  the  first 
time  I  had  ever  heard  our  familiar  mountains  adequately 
spoken  to  !  It  was,  certainly,  the  first  time  I  had  ever 
heard  them  answer.  Human  utterance  does  not  seem  to 
corroborate  our  claim  as  lords  of  creation,  stoutly  as  we 
assert  it  ;  and  I  shall  have  my  own  misgivings  on  the 
subject,  I  fear,  now  that  I  have  heard  these  twenty-four- 
pounders,  until  I  can  speak  to  the  mountains  and  get 
some  sort  of  civil  answer,  as  they  do. 

The  cadets'  mess-room  (for  we  had  several  friends 
among  the  professors,  and  had  fallen  into  the  procession 
of  visitation)  is  in  a  very  imposing  new  building  of 
Korman  architecture,  which  "tells"  admirably  on  the 
scenery  in  which  it  is  placed,  and  is  heightened  by  it,  in 
turn,  with  most  embellishing  foreground  and  background. 
The  interior  looked  simple  and  serviceable.  Table  was 
laid  for  dinner,  and  we  took  a  guess  at  the  weight  of  the 
singularly  massive  china  plates  that  were  set — manufac 
tured  especially  for  cadet  use  and  contingency.  One 
professor  thought  a  plate  might  weigh  two  pounds, 
another  three.  But  if  intended,  as  it  probably  was,  to 


WEST      POINT      GALLERY.  419 

show  what  the  supporter  for  a  soldier's  food  (or  the 
bottom  of  his  stomach)  should  be  like,  it  is  certainly  of 
sturdy  promise  for  a  campaign.  The  small  round  seats 
of  cast-iron  were  of  similar  significance.  War,  if  these 
are  to  be  believed,  needs  tough  stomachs  and  unsuscep 
tible  sittings  down. 

The  library,  the  laboratory,  the  lecture-rooms,  and 
gallery  of  drawings,  were  duly  visited,  and  the  public 
knows  how  serviceably  and  skilfully  complete  are  this 
admirable  institution's  practical  machineries  of  knowledge. 
The  drawings  only  were  a  complete  surprise  to  me.  I 
knew  how  essential  it  was,  of  course,  that  a  soldier  should 
have  a  true  eye,  and  understand  distance  and  effect,  size, 
action  and  color  ;  but  it  had  not  occurred  to  me,  that,  in 
learning  these  scientific  steps  of  art,  he  must  needs  follow 
the  progression  of  an  artist.  The  framed  drawings  by 
the  cadets,  in  that  gallery,  while  they  show  a  most 
thorough  schooling  of  the  eye,  would  do  credit  to  any 
school  of  artists  in  the  world.  Professor  Weir,  himself  a 
master  among  painters,  has  satisfactory  proof  thus  to 
offer  of  the  zeal  and  efficiency  of  the  science  he  teaches  ; 
but  it  is  also  a  most  pleasant  evidence  of  his  inspiring 
such  a  zeal  in  his  pupils  as  to  accomplish  even  more  than 
the  mechanism  of  art— its  taste  and  ornamental  execu 
tion. 

Soldiers  have  to  learn  to  be  a  great  many  things— 


420  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE  WILD. 

chambermaids  among  others  ;  and  the  Representation  of 
the  Government,  in  whose  train  we  had  the  honor  to  be 
walking,  were  to  judge,  of  course,  of  the  proficiency  of 
the  cadets  in  bed-making  and  general  Pollyology.  The 
''barracks"  are  a  handsome  new  structure,  and  divided 
into  those  "  bed-rooms  for  two,"  of  the  comforts  and 
crockery  of  which,  the  undergraduate  heroes  have  the 
exclusive  care.  As  the  colonel  and  his  staff,  and  the 
honorable  visiters  walked  along  the  entries,  doors  were 
thrown  open,  and  the  auto-broorn-haudlmg  and  slop-see- 
ings-after,  as  executed  by  the  one  of  the  two  young 
soldiers  who  was  the  alternate  Polly  of  the  morning,  were 
offered  to  official  inspection.  We  looked  in,  with  the 
rest.  Really,  neatness  and  order  could  no  farther  go  ! 
I  noticed  but  two  peculiarities — (in  addition,  I  mean,  to 
a  most  martinet  scantiness  of  superfluities) — first,  that 
by  male  and  military  chamber-maiding,  no  coverlet  petti 
coats  were  allowed  to  fall  over  the  naked  iron  legs  of  the 
bedsteads,  and  over  the  one  pair  of  shoes  that  stood  in 
solitary  readiness  for  action  under  each  bed  ;  and,  second, 
that  the  mattrass,  as  an  article  that  could  have  no  possi 
bility  of  day-duty,  was  rolled  snugly  up  to  the  bolster, 
out  of  temptation's  way.  Altogether,  one  gets  the 
impression  that  glory  is  more  tidy  and  scant  than  he  had 
supposed,  in  looking  at  this  as  the  training  of  it.  I  had 
expected  two  towels  to  a  hero,  at  least — among  other 


APPEARANCE      OF      THE      CADETS.  421 

disappointments.  And,  as  for  Monterey  and  Buena  Vista 
on  one  tooth-brush  !  but  these  are  considerations  for  the 
honorable  board's  more  statistical  Report  to  Congress. 

Yisits  over,  the  parade  came  off  at  noon.  How  beau 
tiful  it  was,  on  that  green  plateau,  with  sunshine,  music, 
and  June  leaves,  mountains  and  ladies  looking  on,  Cuba 
and  Canada  in  the  distance,  and  a  sumptuous  collation 
expecting  us  at  the  colonel's  house,  immediately  in  the 
rear — I  leave  to  the  reader's  fancy,  with  thus  much  of 
mention.  A  word  or  two  only,  before  closing,  upon 
points  which  my  child-companion  probably  did  not  take 
in — with  his  ice-cream  at  the  colonel's,  and  his  bewildered 
delight  and  astonishment,  swallowed  immediately  before. 

Stature  seems  to  go  by  periods.  There  was  an  age, 
the  histories  tell  us,  when  all  the  great  heroes  and  states 
men  of  the  world  were  small  men.  The  cadets,  at  West 
Point  at  present,  are,  it  is  said,  unusually  tall.  They  are, 
of  course,  nationally  thin.  But  the  contrast  between 
their  agile  and  wiry  look,  and  the  bluff  and  plump 
aspect  of  the  cadets  of  Addiscomb  in  England  (whom  I 
remember  from  having  once  passed  a  month  in  the  neigh 
borhood  of  that  military  college,  seeing  the  parades  and 
exercises  every  day),  would  foreshow  a  natural  and 
trying  antagonism  between  the  two.  To  my  eye,  the 
personal  build  and  bearing  of  our  own  young  graycoats 
could  scarcely  be  improved  upon,  for  endurance  and 


422  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE  WILD. 

action.  They  came  here,  doubtless,  by  that  pick  for  the 
profession  which  ensures  that  they  were  the  best  among 
their  playfellows  for  the  appointment — but  a  more 
indomitable  and  reliable-looking  a  set  of  young  customers 
for  the  enemy,  need  not  be  kept  ready.  And  there  is  a 
singularly  cool  and  thoughtful  absence  of  swell  and 
filibuster  about  them.  It  is  the  quiet  manliness  of  air  which 
belongs  to  fearlessness,  with  skill  and  knowledge.  Their 
model  is  a  high  one — the  Commandant,  Colonel  Lee, 
being,  certainly,  in  feature,  mien,  and  manners,  the  perfec 
tion  of  what  they  should  study  for  a  soldier.  He  (with 
the  family  of  Washington  whose  honors  he  inherits)  is 
well  represented,  by  the  way,  among  the  cadets  them 
selves,  his  son,  a  well-built  and  gallant-looking  fellow, 
being  at  the  head  of  the  graduating  class. 

I  had  something  to  say  of  Weir's  studio,  which  we 
visited  in  the  course  of  the  day — and  of  the  charming 
drive  to  Cozzens's  which  we  took  with  the  agreeable 
gentlemen  of  the  Board  of  Yisitors,  towards  evening — and 
of  Roe  and  his  paradise  of  a  summer  hotel — and  of  the  sun 
set  return  by  the  Alida,  which  came  duly  along  with  her 
usual  crowd  of  well-bred  company  on  board,  and  among 
them  the  far-famed  Lieutenant  Strain,  and  Headley  the 
vehement  historian — and  of  my  boy's  gradual  digestion  of 
his  day  of  transcendent  novelty  and  happiness — of  these 
and  some  more  things  I  could  be  communicative,  possibly 


A      PLEASING      PROMISE.  423 

instructive.  But  we  will  let  the  reader  draw  breath.  To 
one  of  the  omitted  topics,  at  least— Weir's  beautiful 
pictures — I  shall  please  the  reader  by  promising  to  turn, 
hereafter. 


424  LETTERS      FROM      I  D  L  E  W  I  I 


LETTER  LXI 

Adventure  with  a  Snapping-Turtle— Wild  black  Cat,  and  other  quadruped 
Bandits — Visit  to  a  Revolutionary  Soldier — Venerable  Companion — Privations 
of  the  Army — Washington's  features,  &c.,  &c. 

June  24, 1854. 

How  we  become  acquainted  with  new  neighbors  is 
sometimes  an  event  to  ourselves.  Coming  home  from  a 
long  gallop,  yesterday,  I  had  gradually  drawn  rein  (to 
prolong  the  luxury  of  the  last  mile  in  the  heaven  of  a 
June  sunset),  when,  by  the  communicative  ears  of  my 
mare,  I  was  informed  of  something  worth  noticing  in  the 
road.  I  looked  ahead.  So  near  home,  one  is  a  little 
slow  to  be  astonished  ;  but  Lady  Jane  had  not  pricked 
up  her  telegraphic  signals  for  a  mere  feminine  love  of 
news.  There  was  a  monster  in  the  way.  A  moving 
house,  with  the  six  members  of  its  family  hanging  clear 
out  of  the  windows — the  head,  tail  and  legs  of  a  tortoise, 
of  the  like  of  which  I  had  never  before  seen  a  specimen, 
with  its  belongings  all  outside  like  Barnuin's  elephant, 
whose  legs  and  trunk  may  be  seen  for  nothing,  though  he 
walks  from  town  to  town  with  a  barn  around  him — stood 


A      SNAPPING-TURTLE.  425 

directly  in  the  track.  A  common  turtle  my  friend  Morris 
had  mercifully  removed  from  the  carriage  road,  near  the 
house,  a  day  or  two  before  ;  and  the  children  every  day 
bring  in  those  little  unresisting  Quakers,  with  their  toes 
and  fingers  drawn  in  to  wait  our  pleasure — but  this  was 
a  very  different  customer.  The  broad  rim  of  my  hat 
would  not  have  taken  in  his  entire  outline,  and  his  big 
shell  might  have  stirred  the  envy  of  an  alderman — evi 
dently  a  bony  paunch  which  he  had  the  power  of  vacating 
altogether  of  its  vital  organs,  to  make  room  for  his  din 
ner.  It  was  a  snapping-turtle,  in  fact — but,  let  me  anti 
cipate  a  little,  by  quoting  what  Natural  History  says  of 
the  species  : — 

"  The  snapper  (E.  Serpentind)  has  been  separated  by  some 
authors  from  emys,  on  account  of  the  small  size  of  the  sternum 
which  serves  very  imperfectly  to  conceal  the  head  and  members. 
It  is  found  from  New  England  to  Florida,  is  very  voracious,  and 
destroys  great  quantities  of  fish.  The  shell  is  more  or  less  tri- 
carinate  ;  the  head,  neck,  limbs  and  tail  are  very  large,  the  latter 
strongly  crested.  From  the  form  of  its  body,  it  is  called,  in  the 
Southern  States,  alligator  tortoise.  It  bites  severely,  and  will 
seize  anything  presented  to  it,  and  sometimes  will  not  let  go  its 
hold,  even  after  the  head  is  severed  from  the  body.  It  attains 
large  dimensions.  Individuals  have  been  met  with,  exceeding  four 
feet  and  a  half  in  total  length." 

The  difference  of  a  piano-forte,  with  or  without  its  legs, 


426        LETTERS   FROM   IDLE  WILD. 

was  the  difference  between  niy  previous  impression  of  a 
turtle  and  the  one  before  me.  The  shell  of  the  animal, 
which  was  about  two  feet  in  length,  stood  well  lifted 
from  the  mud,  and  he  would  apparently  walk  over  an 
egg  without  breaking  it.  The  head  followed  my  move 
ments,  the  little  green  eyes  venomously  intent  on  me, 
and,  as  my  restless  mare  fretted  around  him,  his  tail 
acted  like  a  scull-oar,  assisting  his  legs  in  working  about 
so  as  to  keep  head  on  to  the  enemy. 

It  appeared,  as  I  looked  at  him,  that  a  wheel  of  some 
light  vehicle  had  left  a  mud-mark  across  the  reptile's 
back,  and,  by  his  continuing  in  the  road,  he  did  not 
know  enough  to  profit  by  his  experience.  He  was  in  a 
fair  way  to  be  run  over  again,  and  by  a  heavier  wagon  ; 
and  it  was  but  neighborly,  of  course,  to  put  him  beyond 
danger.  I  dismounted  and  turned  him  on  his  back,  by  a 
sudden  lift  with  my  foot,  but  he  whipped  over  on  his  legs 
again  with  the  quickness  of  a  torpedo,  and,  by  a  second 
jump,  seized  me  at  the  ankle.  I  just  felt  the  scrape  of 
his  toothless  mandibles  ;  but,  though  my  skin  was  not 
included  in  the  bite,  my  boot  and  trouser  were  ;  and,  for 
a  moment,  it  looked  as  if  I  must  cut  loose  with  a  pen 
knife  or  mount  and  ride  home  with  a  pendant  snapping- 
turtle  for  a  spur.  He  loosed  his  hold  to  prepare  for  a 
snap  at  Lady  Jane,  however,  who  was  prancing  danger 
ously  near  his  toes  meantime,  and  so  I  stood  clear — once 


A      DISAPPOINTED      EPICURE.  427 

more  reminded  of  what  are  this  world's  reciprocities  for 
acts  of  kindness  and  mercy. 

This  kind  of  turtle  is  good  eating,  and,  on  my  arriving 
at  home  and  mentioning  the  encounter  to  Bell  (my  lesser- 
anxiety  man),  he  started  on  a  full  run  for  the  spot, 
anticipating  a  delicacy  for  his  supper.  But  the  gentle 
man  (or  rather  the  lady,  for  he  said  it  was  doubtless  a 
female  on  her  way  up  from  the  marsh  to  lay  her  eggs  in 
the  bushes  on  the  hill-side),  had  made  the  best  of  the  ten 
minutes  to  get  away.  I  asked  him  how  he  would  have 
brought  her  home  without  a  weapon  first  to  dispatch  her ; 
and  he  said  (what  I  think  it  may  be  useful  to  record  for 
inexperienced  captors  of  snapping-turtles)  that  he  should 
have  watched  his  chance  to  seize  her  by  the  tail.  Once 
lifted  clear  of  the  ground,  the  jumping  animal  may  be 
carried  as  easily  as  a  carpet-bag. 

I  find  that  two  of  this  same  family  were  dug  out  from 
our  muck-meadow  last  year,  and  eaten  without  mention  ; 
so  that  Idlewild  has  probably  its  tenantry  of  snapping- 
turtles — awkward  vicinage,  perhaps,  for  such  stray  poets 
as  throw  themselves 

"Prone  on  the  grass  in  rapturous  reverie  ;" 

particularly,  as  the  reptile,  half  buried  in  clover  and 
buttercups,  would  look  very  like  a  flat  stone  whereon  to 
rest  an  elbow  or  sit  dry.  Brother  scribblers  and  idlers 


LETTERS      F  R 0  M      I D L E W I L  D  . 

are  hereby  cautioned  against   unexpected  hostilities  in 
places  of  rest. 

Our  veto  upon  guns  and  hunting-dogs  has  multiplied 
the  game  to  a  wonderful  extent  within  these  wild  limits, 
but  I  find  that  animals  of  prey  (perhaps  snapping-turtles 
among  them)   are   attracted   to  the  spot  by  the  same 
immunity,  or  by  what  it  protects.     The  glen  is  a  fastness 
of  caves  and  precipices,  and  (the  house  barely  overhang 
ing  its  depths),  there  is  but  an  easy  scramble  of  two 
hundred  feet  between  the  fox's  hole  and  our  poultry  yard. 
Turkey  after  turkey  has  disappeared,  leaving  but  claws 
or  bloody  feathers  to  tell  the  tale,  and  a  rabbit's  foot 
here,   or   a  squirrel's   tail  there,   shows   daily  that   our 
sacred   asylum   for  these   innocent  and  happy  races  is 
stealthily  profaned.      Among  other  quadruped  bandits, 
curiously  enough,  is  a  black  cat,  who  has  been  tempted 
by  the  abundance  of  the  birds  and  other  game,  and  has 
evidently  abandoned  kitchen  dependence  and  civilisation, 
to  live  a  savage  life  altogether  in  the  glen.     We  get 
glimpses  of  her  every  day,  in  rambling  about,  and,  occa 
sionally,  she  passes  very  near,  not  at  all  disturbed  by 
human  approach  ;  but,  after  seeing  a  brilliant  oriole  in 
her  claws  the  other  clay,  I  mentally  pronounced  her  an 
outlaw.     We  must  have  a  fox-hunt  before  long,  in  which 
the  doom  of  the  black  cat  must  be  included. 


LIFE-GUARDSMAN.  429 

Our  Highland  neighborhood  prides  itself  on  the  masto 
don,  disinterred  among  its  hills,  and  the  memorials  of 
Washington,  so  long  here,  and  at  such  a  trying  period 
with  his  army.  Science  and  history  must  take  us  in  their 
way.  Perhaps  even  Mr.  Barnuin,  too,  would  give  us  a 
reconnoitering  call,  if  he  should  hear,  that,  among  other 
belongings  of  the  Father  of  Independence,  his  "usual 
nap"  still  survives  among  us,  as  well  as  his  tea-kettle 
and  arm-chair.  Such  is  the  fact — if  the  ear  alone  is  to 
be  trusted  with  a  word.  Usual  Knapp  is  the  curious 
name  of  the  only  surviving  member  of  Washington's  Life- 
Guard,  an  old  man  of  ninety-five  years  of  age,  here 
resident,  and  still  hearty  and  active.  And  the  circum 
stance  with  which  he  is  commonly  mentioned  gives  a 
promise  of  his  still  lasting  longer — a  habit,  which  he  has 
kept  up  for  the  eight  or  nine  years  that  he  has  now  been 
a  widower,  of  celebrating  his  own  birthday  by  a  call  on 
all  the  widows  of  the  country  round  about. 

The  portrait  of  this  venerable  "  revolutionary,"  which 
hangs  among  the  relics  in  the  old  mansion  known  as 
Washington's  Head- Quarters,  at  Newburgh,  had  started 
a  question  as  to  his  whereabout  ;  and  we  were  surprised 
to  discover  that  he  was  residing  on  just  the  other  side  of 
the  mountain  which  we  see  from  our  western  window — a 
brother  farmer,  within  ten  or  twelve  miles  of  Idlewild. 
This  was  startling  vicinity  for  a  still  unsnapped  link  with 


430  LETTERS     FROM     IDLE  WILD. 

an  age  gone  by,  and  to  drive  over  and  see  the  old  man 
on  the  first  fair  day,  was  the  promise  of  an  excursion  that 
might  even  lay  a  rose  leaf  on  the  full  cup  of  a  June 
morning. 

I  have  spoken  «nce  or  twice  in  these  letters  of  our 
venerable  next  neighbor,  Friend  S.,  the  quaker,  whose 
white  locks  and  soul-calm  tranquillity  of  mien  and  fea 
tures  are  among  the  most  precious  and  beautiful  of 
the  accustomed  pictures  in  our  secluded  grounds.  To 
him  also  it  was  a  surprise  to  learn  that  so  interesting  a 
person  as  Usual  Knapp  was  still  living,  and  within  visit 
ing  distance,  and  he  willingly  agreed  to  make  one  of  the 
party.  His  company  had  the  additional  value  to  us,  that 
it  would  bring  together  two  whose  eyes  had  been  familiar 
with  the  form  of  Washington,  Friend  S.  (now  eighty 
years  of  age),  having  been  a  boy  in  the  neighborhood 
when  the  head-quarters  were  here,  and  seeing  the  great 
man  almost  daily. 

The  rural  township  to  which  we  were  bound  is  called 
Little  Britain,  and  the  atmosphere,  on  the  morning  of 
our  excursion  (June  16th),  was  of  that  occasional  sum 
mer  haze  which  gives  our  hard  and  clear  landscape  the 
softer  effect  of  that  of  England.  There  would  have  been 
a  third  reminder  of  the  parent  country,  in  the  sign  of  the 
old  tavern,  representing  General  George  Washington 
leading  the  British  lion  by  a  chain — but  that  remarkable 


THE      "SJIOTHERER."  431 

painting  is  now  removed.  The  highly  cultivated  fields  of 
this  part  of  our  county  of  eggs  and  butter,  looked  very 
English,  in  the  veiled  sunshine.  The  cattle  were  English 
— Devon  cows  in  every  pasture.  A  belonging  of  our 
own  native  scenery  was  suddenly  missed,  as  we  descended 
from  the  gap  in  the  ridge  of  Snake  Hill — the  thick  cedars 
which  line  the  walls  on  every  road  of  Highland  terrace. 
With  the  change  of  the  soil,  in  passing  the  bowl-rim  of 
mountains  that  shuts  us  in,  the  nourishment  for  this 
invaluable  tree  evidently  ceases,  and  I  had  not  realized 
before  how  fortunate  we  are  in  having  such  superb  spon 
taneous  avenues  for  the  public  roads,  on  our  romantic 
ten-mile  terrace. 

At  the  gate  of  a  small  and  unpainted  farm  cottage, 
on  the  side  of  a  hill,  I  tied  up  my  warm  ponies,  and,  as 
the  front  porch  showed  no  sign  of  life,  we  took  the  garden 
way  to  the  back-door.  Here  we  were  met  by  a  middle- 
aged  lady,  whose  face  we  could  but  partially  see,  for  she 
had  on  one  of  those  smother  ers,  or  hoods,  which  all  our 
country  girls  wear  till  they  have  got  through  with  their 
work  in  the  morning — this  useful  article  hanging,  for  the 
rest  of  the  day,  on  a  nail  by  the  kitchen-door,  ready  to 
be  slipped  on  whenever  there  is  an  errand  to  the  barn,  or 
whenever  the  hair  is  to  be  protected  from  dust,  or  the 
features  from  unwished  for  observation.  Probably  no 
passing  stranger  ever  saw  the  lace  of  an  American  girl 


432       LETTERS   FROM   IDLE  WILD. 

while  she  was  milking  the  cows,  or  weeding  the  carrot- 
patch. 

The  parlor  blinds  were  thrown  open,  chairs  placed, 
and  the  kindest  of  welcomes  given  us,  by  this  disguised 
lady  in  her  sniotherer,  and  then,  saying  that  her  father 
would  be  in  presently,  she  disappeared,  to  be  seen  no 
more  for  that  visit.*  The  old  man  was  at  work  in  his 
garden,  but  his  slow  steps  were  soon  heard,  and  he 
entered  the  room,  throwing  his  hat  upon  the  floor  at  one 
side  of  the  threshold,  and  his  stick  at  the  other.  With  a 
smile  on  his  face  and  both  hands  open,  he  came  forward 
to  greet  the  strangers.  He  was  tall  and  bent,  but  evi 
dently  of  the  lithe  and  symmetrical  build  which  was  like 
liest  to  attain  his  present  age  of  ninety-five.  His  head 
and  features  were  exceedingly  fine.  A  sculptor  would 
have  modelled  a  Caesar  from  them,  a  half  century  ago. 
Frankness,  cordiality,  and  self-confident  simplicity,  were 
marked  in  his  expression  of  face,  voice,  and  manners. 

Yery  deaf,  he  drew  our  chairs  very  near  him  ;  and, 
with  his  right  hand  on  the  leg  of  Friend  S.,  and  his  left 
hand  on  mine,  he  made  himself  acquainted  with  our  names 
and  professions.  The  group  chanced  to  be  a  curious 

*  In  a  drive  over  which  I  have  since  taken,  to  give  my  wife  the  pleasure  of 
seeing  the  honored  veteran,  we  had  the  good  fortune  to  see  one  of  the  ladies, 
and  were  very  much  delighted  with  her  inheritance  of  countenance  and  man 
ners.  She  is,  indeed,  a  worthy  daughter  of  a  sire  such  as  republics  depend  on. 


OLD-TIME      REMINISCENCES.  433 

ladder  of  ages — my  boy  of  six  years  of  age,  his  father, 
and  his  grandfather  (Mr.  Grinnell  of  New  Bedford),  the 
octogenarian  Friend  S.,  and  the  almost  centarian  we  had 
come  to  visit — five  stages  of  a  century,  in  a  circle  intent 
upon  honoring  and  listening  to  the  oldest.  And  what  a 
wilderness  of  deeds  and  dinners,  to  fill  up  the  interval 
between  the  first  round  of  that  ladder  and  the  last ! 
With  all  the  success  and  honor  of  the  three  rounds  above 
me,  I  must  say  it  seemed  rather  a  climb.  My  conscious 
likelihood  of  not  coming  to  the  next  had  a  relief  in  it, 
like  the  crossed-out  item  in  a  bill. 

The  two  old  men,  with  the  long  gray  locks  of  their 
two  beautiful  heads  laid  close  together,  soon  got  to  com 
paring  their  reminiscences  of  Washington — the  subject 
we  were  the  most  interested  in  bringing  about.  Friend 
S.  related  how  the  boys  used  to  be  called  out  of  school 
when  the  commander-in-chief  was  seen  to  be  coming  along 
the  road  on  horseback,  and  how  dignified  and  noble  he 
looked,  as  he  rode  past  with  his  hat  off,  courteously 
returning  the  low-bowed  salutation  of  the  lads.  He  said 
also,  that  he  now  lived  in  the  house  Lafayette  occupied 
at  that  time,  at  the  junction  of  the  Moodna  with  the 
Hudson  ;  and  then  they  refreshed  their  memories  with 
the  story  of  the  Irishman  who  undertook  to  carry  the 
marquis  across  that  stream  on  his  back,  and  dropped 
him  into  the  water— a  possibility  of  an  intention  to  drown 
19 


434  LETTERS      FROM      IDLEWILD. 

the  popular  officer,  which  made  the  Irishman  so  detested 
that  he  was  obliged  to  leave  the  neighborhood. 

But  the  old  sergeant's  description  of  the  parade  of  the 
life-guard  every  morning  before  the  mansion  of  head 
quarters,  and  the  look  of  the  general  as  he  slowly  walked 
up  and  clown  the  portico,  "  straight  as  a  dart  and  noble 
as  he  could  be/'  was  the  most  glowing  of  all.  They 
"  had  the  three  best  drummers  in  the  army,"  he  said,  and 
"  they  made  such  music  that  it  took  you  right  off  your 
feet."  It  entirely  straightened  the  old  man's  spine  to 
talk  of  it.  He  sat  bolt  upright,  and  the  squeeze  of  his 
bony  fingers  upon  my  leg  could  not  have  been  much 
looser  than  the  one  with  which  he  "charged  bayonet" 
at  the  battle  of  Monmouth.  He  said  he  remembered  a 
verbal  order  Washington  gave  him,  at  that  time— not  to 
present  arms  or  take  notice  of  him  when  he  was  alone. 
"He  was  a  man  of  few  words,"  he  said,  "and  never 
familiar  with  anybody."  He  repeated  a  story  he  had 
once  before  told  to  Headley  the  historian,  of  his  having 
seen  Washington  dodge  a  spent  ball  that  passed  close  to 
his  head  on  the  battle-field,  and  his  smiling  immediately, 
as  if  at  his  unsoldierlike  weakness  in  doing  so,  and  turn 
ing  to  his  officers  with  the  remark,  "  Ah,  the  frailty  of 
poor  human  nature  1" 

Of  the  General's  dress  he  gave  us  a  minute  description. 
Mrs.  Washington,  he  said,  was  with  him  at  Newburgh, 


REVOLUTIONARY      INCIDENTS.  435 

but  "  she  was  older  than  the  General,  and  not  a  handsome 
woman."  Of  General  Knox,  who  was  stationed  at  West 
Point,  and  of  the  wonderful  beauty  of  Mrs.  Knox,  his 
mention  was  very  enthusiastic.  Knox  was  a  "  large 
splendid  man."  The  sergeant  was  often  employed  to  go 
with  a  boat  to  the  Point,  arid  bring  General  and  Mrs. 
Knox  to  dine  with  General  Washington.  He  was  once 
ordered  by  the  imperious  officer  to  land  at  a  certain  place 
where  he  knew  it  was  too  shallow.  He  remonstrated,  but 
Knox  insisted.  So  they  obeyed  and  ran  into  the  mud, 
and  were  obliged  to  sit  in  the  boat  till  the  tide  rose  to 
take  them  off  ;  and  the  delay  was  very  provoking  at  the 
time. 

The  old  soldier  gave  us  a  thrilling  description  of  the 
privations  of  the  army  in  its  forced  march  to  the  South. 
It  was  the  wettest  season  ever  known,  and  he  had  not  a 
dry  thread  on  him  for  weeks,  but  he  never  took  cold. 
The  rations  were  next  to  starvation — often  a  dried  herring 
a  day,  and  no  bread.  At  the  battle  of  Monmouth  every 
man  in  his  company  was  shot,  he  himself  received  no 
wound  then,  or  in  the  other  actions  he  was  in,  during  the 
war,  except  a  slight  graze  of  a  ball  on  the  back  of  his  left 
hand.  The  old  man's  feelings  got  the  better  of  him  once 
or  twice  in  narrating  the  stirring  scenes  in  which  he  had 
borne  a  part,  and  he  "  choked  off" — but  it  evidently  gave 
him  great  pleasure  to  recall  them.  He  said  he  had  no 


436  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE  WILD. 

memory  for  things,  now,  but  lie  could  remember  every 
thing  that  happened  t/ten,  as  if  it  were  yesterday.  He 
enlisted  at  the  age  of  sixteen,  and  was  in  the  army  six 
years.  Since  the  disbanding,  at  the  Peace,  he  has  been 
a  farmer,  taking  no  part  in  the  war  of  1812.  His  wife 
died  eight  years  ago,  at  the  age  of  seventy-nine,  and  his 
two  only  children  (daughters,  one  of  whom  assists  in  the 
support  of  her  father,  by  dress-making),  live  with  him. 
His  pension  of  ten  dollars  a  month  is  much  too  little — for 
his  merits,  I  should  think,  as  well  as  for  his  wants. 

To  see  those  two  men,  to  whose  eyes  Washington's 
living  features  and  form  have  been  familiar — sitting 
together,  and  talking  of  him  with  their  eyes  bent  upon 
each  other's  faces,  yet  each  seeing  the  memory-picture  of 
the  great  man,  as  he  talked  or  listened — gave  a  strange 
impetus  to  the  imagination,  a  new  one  to  me,  for  the 
conceiving  of  what  "Washington  was,  as  he  breathed  and 
acted.  It  was  the  Present  turned  back  to  the  Past,  in  the 
magician's  mirror.  As  we  drove  home,  I  felt  as  if  we 
were  returning  from  a  place  where  we  had  seen  times 
gone  by, — though  my  horses,  by  the  unusual  length  of  the 
drive  and  the  delay  in  their  dinners,  doubtless  thought  it 
more  like  a  stretch  into  the  Future. 


FOURTH      OF      JULY.  437 


LETTER  LXII. 

Celebration  of  the  Fourth  of  July  by  Children — Procession  through  the  Grounds 
of  Idle  wild— Song  by  the  Children— Jheir  Pic-nic  in  the  Grove— Speeches, 
&c.,  &c. 

July  8, 1S54. 

Ox  the  morning  of  the  Fourth  of  July,  A  HUNDRED 
CHILDREN,  chanting  a  hymn,  walked  in  procession  down 
the  hemlock  avenue  of  Idlewild,  led  by  their  Sabbath- 
school  teachers,  and  followed  by  their  parents  and  friends. 
They  were  bound  to  our  shaded  meadow-glade  (at  the 
outlet  where  the  two  glens,  Funnychild  and  its  wilder 
brother,  run  their  torrents  into  one),  to  celebrate  the  day 
with  a  pic-nic  on  the  grass.  It  had  been  intimated  by 
our  friend  Mr.  Roe,  the  principal  teacher,  that  it  would 
gratify  the  children  to  be  received  first  at  the  house, 
taking  our  family  into  their  musical  procession  as  they 
should  afterwards  go  upon  their  way  ;  and  hence  the 
beautiful  picture  which  we  now  saw  across  the  lawn — the 
long  array  of  children  along  its  rising  curve  making  the 
centre  of  a  landscape,  with  the  Storm-King  and  a  sum 
mer-sky  lifting  beyond,  very  much  as  the  glowing  pencil 
of  De  la  Roche  would  have  contrived  and  painted  it. 


438  LETTERS      FROM      1DLEWILD. 

The  hymn  ceased  as  they  reached  the  portico,  and  we 
welcomed    the    gaily-dressed    troop,    distributing    them 
about  through  the  four  or  five  open  rooms,  and  enjoining 
full  liberty  upon  their  feet  and  eyes,  with  such  access  to 
pitchers  of  water  as  would  sustain  their  Glorious  Fourth- 
ification  till  the  more  substantial  refreshment  basketed  in 
the  meadow  below.     Pictures  and  statuary  were  new  to 
most  of  the  little  mountaineers,  and  our  wilderness  of 
trifles  (more  rococo  than  costly)  seemed  to  fully  absorb 
their  curiosity — one  bright  boy,  whom  I  noticed,  standing 
with  open  mouth  before  a  marble  shepherdess  lying  in 
nude  slumber  beside  her  crook,  apparently  pleased,  though 
surprised,  to  find  that  the  loveliness  of  unclad  innocence 
was  a  matter  of  drawing-room  admiration.     A  hundred 
children  cannot  but  have  a  thick  sprinkle  of  beauty  ;  and, 
standing  in  our  central  hall,  and  looking  around  upon  the 
four  rooms  crowded  with  their  joyous  faces,  I  could  not 
resist  that  sort  of  submerged  feeling — the  kind  of  emo 
tional  half-drown — with  which  the  soul  gets  out  of  its 
depth  in  sudden  admiration.     Mature  prepares  so  many, 
to  be  beautiful  and  noble  !     The  children  of  the  poor  are 
so  apt  to  look  as  if  the  rich  would  have  been  over-blest 
with  such  !     Alas  for  the  angel  capabilities,  interrupted 
so  soon  with  care,  and  with  after  life  so  sadly  unfulfilled  ! 
A  very  old  woman,  leaning  on  her  long  rough  stick, 
and  drawn  from  her  bed  of  rheumatism  by  the  stir  of  the 


CHILD- MUSIC.  439 

day,  had  hobbled  in  among  the  rest ;  and  the  large  troop 
of  the  children's  friends  numbered  several  gray  heads,  and 
two  who  were  eighty  years  of  age — so  that  we  had  no 
lack  of  such  contrast  as  artist  and  moralist  equally 
admire.  The  half-hour  to  which  the  teachers  had  limited 
the  visit  was  to  me  a  magical  revealing  of  what  our 
mountain-scenery  hides  among  its  rocks  and  leafy  woods, 
and  I  shall  see  the  broad  sweep  of  the  landscape  with 
more  understanding  eyes  hereafter.  We  know  now  what 
life  is  astir  in  the  covered  pulses  of  those  romantic  hills. 

The  procession  re-formed  in  the  pine  grove  which  over 
hangs  the  glen,  in  the  rear  of  the  house  ;  and,  as  we,  and 
the  city  guests  who  chanced  to  be  with  us,  fell  in,  they 
took  up  the  song  of  "  Little  Things  " — a  very  touching 
one,  by  the  way,  which,  though  much  thumbed  in  Sab 
bath-school  literature,  is  well  worth  copying  for  the  more 
general  reader.  Thus  sang  the  hundred  child-voices,  as 
they  wound  away  : — 

Little  drops  of  water, 

Little  grains  of  sand, 
Make  the  mighty  ocean, 

And  the  beauteous  land. 

And  the  little  moments, 

Humble  though  they  be, 
Make  the  mighty  ages 

Of  eternity. 


440  LETTERS      FROM      IDLEWILD. 

So  our  little  errors 

Lead  the  soul  away 
From  the  paths  of  virtue, 

Oft  in  sin  to  stray. 

Little  deeds  of  kindness, 

Little  words  of  love, 
Make  our  earth  an  Eden, 

Like  the  heaven  above. 

Great  things  have  less  stirred  pine-tassels  and  me  ! 

With  a  moment's  interruption  from  a  sudden  onslaught 
upon  the  procession  made  by  Don,  our  wilful  Newfound 
land,  who  poured  his  thundering  bass  into  the  treble 
chorus  as  they  neared  the  stable  (following  it  up  with  his 
excited  legs  and  tail,  like  a  mad  organist  carried  away 
with  the  music,  and  plunging  over  upon  the  congregation 
to  add  himself  to  the  swell  of  the  dogs-ology) — with  this 
brief  interruption,  the  many  little  singers  wound  their 
way  down  the  ravine.  All  gayly  dressed  as  they  were,  in 
white  and  bright  colors,  it  was  a  startlingly  new  and 
bright  thread  drawn  through  that  winding  road,  and 
gleaming  in  and  out  among  the  trees  and  around  the  pre 
cipices  and  rocks — probably  more  beautiful  to  our  eyes 
from  our  being  accustomed  to  it  as  a  solitude.  It  was  a 
stage  whose  lifted  curtain  had  hitherto  shown  us  a 
brilliant  scene,  but  to  which  were  now  added  the  figures 
of  the  play.  Human  beings  improve  scenery — spite  of 


T  II  E      P  I  C-  N  I  C  .  441 

the  geologist's  theory  that  mankind  are  incidental,  and 
not  necessary,  to  the  destiny  of  this  our  planet. 

Upon  the  steep  instep  of  the  mountain's  projected 
foot,  which  divides  the  two  glens  of  Idlewild  and  Funny- 
child,  the  children  grouped  themselves  under  the  trees,  as 
if  among  the  columns  of  an  ascending  gallery,  while  the 
old  people  and  the  visitors  and  friends  reclined  beneath 
the  spreading  hemlocks  of  the  meadow-glade  below. 
Architecture  could  scarcely  have  contrived  a  better 
arrangement  of  a  congregation  for  seeing  and  listening. 
The  long  table  covered  with  eatables,  in  a  darkly-shaded 
thicket  on  the  brook-bank,  promised  to  "  bring  down  the 
gallery,"  when  the  services  should  be  over,  and  the 
unfenced  perspectives  under  the  trees,  stretching  away 
indistinctly  on  either  side,  offered  labyrinthine  rambles  to 
any  who  should  choose  solitude  after  the  feast.  It 
looked  like  a  picture  of  a  Happy  Yalley— so  happy, 
at  least,  as  to  be  altogether  out  of  harmony  with 
that  cold  hymn  to  Indifference  : — 

"  Half-pleased,  contented  I  will  be — 
Content  but  half  to  please." 

The  address  and  prayer  by  the  village  clergyman  were 
followed  by  a  Sabbath-school  song,  and  then  came  the 
reading  of  the  DECLARATION  OF  INDEPENDENCE — that 
faultless  language-temple  of  Liberty,  which  brings  the 
soul  to  its  knee  with  the  mere  recognition  of  its  truth, 

19* 


442  LETTERS      FROM     IDLE  WILD. 

strength,  and  beauty.  What  thoughts,  and  what  lan 
guage  !  It  should  be  written  on  school-walls,  and 
graven  on  entablatures  behind  the  platforms  for  orators, 
and  be  largely  legible  wherever  public  assemblies  must 
gaze  and  read — for,  till  its  rcck-hewri  sentences  are  for 
gotten,  not  to  be  free  were  to  be  ashamed. 

Our  venerable  neighbor,  Friend  S.  (whom  the  children 
love,  far  and  near),  stood  up  with  his  white  locks,  and 
was  eagerly  listened  to,  for  a  few  minutes  ;  and  our 
guest,  Mr.  Charles  Butler,  made  a  brief  and  very  effec 
tive  address  ;  and  Mr.  Roe,  the  principal  of  the  admira 
ble  boys'-school  near  by,  went  straight  to  the  child-level 
of  perception,  with  his  usual  tact,  in  a  playful  speech. 
One  general  hymn  wound  up  the  gravities  of  the  day. 

The  history  of  the  gaieties — the  subsequent  descent 
upon  the  ginger-nuts  and  sandwiches — is  too  active  for 
my  contemplative  pen.  The  subject  outruns  me.  In 
fact,  my  own  dinner  was  awaiting  me,  about  that  time, 
on  the  precipice  two  hundred  feet  above  ;  and,  though 
the  echoes  of  the  shouts  and  merry  laughter  came  to  our 
ears  as  we  sat  at  table,  and  we  could  see  the  glimmer  of 
the  white  dresses  and  gay  ribbons  among  the  far-down 
trees,  looking  out  of  our  windows,  from  time  to  time, 
during  the  afternoon,  I  did  not  again  join  the  merry 
little  republicans.  They  were  happy.  And  they  asso 
ciated  that  happiness  with  the  celebration  of  their  coun- 


THE    NATION'S    FESTIVAL.  443 

try's  great  day  of  Liberty.  They  will  remember  the  one 
by  the  other.  And,  certainly,  Idlewild  can  be  no  better 
honored  than  by  an  acceptance  of  its  welcome — next 
year  and  thenceforward — to  celebrate,  under  the  shade 
of  its  spreading  trees,  the  festival  so  full  of  blessing  and 
meaning. 


444  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE  WILD. 


LETTER  LXIII. 

Government  of  the  American  Homestead — Republic  in  the  Country,  but  not  in 
the  City — Aristocracy  of  upper  Servants  not  tolerated — Each  Individual's 
Self-Esteem  to  be  cared  for — Irish  lad  in  his  progress  in  Americanizing — 
Difficulty  of  other  Servants  allowing  a  Head  Man,  &c.,  &c. 

July  22, 1854. 

THE  oligarchy  of  a  small  homestead  is  not  without  its 
questions  of  embarrassing  policy.  The  children  and  the 
other  members  of  our  little  Government  at  Idlewild  are  at 
a  stand-still,  which  the  White  House  at  Washington 
could  scarcely  show  the  like  of,  discussion  having  come  to 
a  momentous  crisis  as  to  the  social  position  and  destiny 
of  Don  the  dog. 

The  first  act  of  this  Quixotic  Newfoundland — attacking 
the  vast  water-wheel  of  our  neighbor  the  miller — was 
indulgently  attributed  to  a  rustic  ignorance.  But  his 
subsequent  conduct  has  shown  it  to  have  sprung  from  an 
eccentricity  of  character  unsusceptible  of  domestic  disci 
pline  and  obligations.  With  all  the  majestic  beauty  of 
his  race,  he  is  strangely  deficient  in  their  usual  docility, 
and  particularly  in  their  attachment  to  children  and 


DON      THE      CULPRIT.  445 

much  prized  inexhaustibleness  of  patience.  He  has 
repeatedly  bitten  his  little  playfellows,  and  with  each 
repeated  chaining-up  and  whipping,  we  have  hoped  it 
would  be  the  last  transgression.  But,  a  week  or  more 
since,  a  friend  from  New  York  called  upon  us,  with  his 
two  boys  who  are  at  a  school  in  the  neighborhood, 
accompanied  by  a  son  of  Professor  Weir,  who  is  also  a 
pupil.  Don  walked  into  the  group,  as  they  sat  upon  the 
portico,  and,  while  young  Weir  laid  his  hand  confidingly 
between  the  open  jaws  of  the  dog,  one  of  the  other  boys 
gave  a  sudden  twist  to  the  tail.  A  furious  growl  and  a 
savage  mangle  of  the  hand  in  his  mouth  was  the  imme 
diate  consequence — the  fine  boy  showing  where  he  had 
been  cradled  (at  West  Point)  by  keeping  an  unchanged 
smile  upon  his  face,  and  contending  for  the  extrication  of 
his  hand  like  a  little  gladiator. 

Now,  though  small  dogs  are  comparatively  irrespon 
sible  in  the  country,  big  dogs  have  their  rural  "  fire  and 
brimstone."  The  treadmill  churn  of  the  nearest  farm  is 
open  to  transgressors — many  a  pound  of  fresh  butter  in 
Orange  county  being  the  work  of  sinner-power  thus 
exemplarily  turned  to  account.  I  had  a  s  oft  place  in  my 
own  heart  for  the  Don.  He  had  made  me  the  one  object 
of  his  affections  from  the  day  of  his  arrival — a  preference 
he  would  never  be  fed,  nor  coaxed,  nor  whipped  out  of — 
happy  only  under  some  window  where  he  could  hear  me 


446  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE  WILD. 

cough,  savagely  jealous  of  my  horse,  and  drawing  happi 
ness  enough  through  a  crack,  apparently,  if  permitted  to 
lie  all  day  outside  my  study  door.  Whichever  way 
metempsychosis  might  make  room  for  the  imagination — 
whether  I  had  once  walked  upon  four  legs  or  he 
upon  two — there  was  something  in  this  mysterious 
affection  which  tended  to  modify  my  sense  of  justice. 
I  was  not  quite  dead  to  being  inexplicably  loved.  But 
he  had  bitten  a  friend's  son  ;  and,  with  children  about, 
dog-days  coming,  drought  prophesied,  and  possible  hydro 
phobia — no  !  the  weakness  in  the  judge  was  overruled. 
Sore-footed  butter-making  was  the  culprit's  doom. 

But  my  farm-tenant  here  put  in  a  plea.  We  should 
have  no  peace  with  trespassing  hogs,  if  that  big  dog 
were  once  out  of  sight ;  and  he  could  be  taken  to 
the  farm-cottage,  below  the  hill,  and  regularly  broken  in, 
as  a  pork-patrol  ;  and  Bell  warranted,  with  a  little  disci 
pline,  he  himself  would  soon  be  the  clog's  sole  master, 
and  that  strangers  and  the  children  should  hear  no  more 
of  his  caprices.  Agreed  to.  And,  with  a  rope  around 
his  neck,  the  astonished  Quixote  was  led  off,  to  lay  aside 
his  gentleman  instincts,  and  be  numbered  among  the 
exclusively  usefuls. 

Dogs  have  stomachs  with  opinions  in  them,  however, 
and  the  Don  rebelled  at  the  immediate  difference  to  which 
he  was  called  upon  to  accommodate  himself  in  his  drink 


RURAL      REPUBLIC.  447 

and  diet.  With  his  rope  gnawed  off  and  dragging 
after  him,  he  returned  and  returned,  looking  thin  and 
unhappy,  and  resumed  his  picturesque  postures  upon 
the  lawn,  his  large  eyes  eloquent  with  expectancy 
of  his  accustomed  bread  and  milk  (for  strangely 
enough,  he  has  an  unconquered  aversion  to  meat), 
and  his  sides  hollow  with  dismay  at  the  possibility 
of  more  bones  and  water.  The  cook  melted  to  pity. 
Nurses  and  chambermaids  declared  the  dog  a  victim. 
The  children  shared  their  suppers  with  him.  And  so  we 
stand — Idlewild  divided,  but  a  majority  of  our  little 
oligarchy  strenuous  in  favor  of  a  repeal  of  the  pig 
compromise,  and  a  complete  restoration  of  the  handsome 
dog  to  his  former  privileges  and  perambulations.  Ques 
tions  of  state  policy  have  been  kept  pending  before  now, 
with  less  conflicts  of  principles  and  partialities. 

In  fact  while  a  family  in  town  may  be  governed  and 
held  together  mainly  by  money,  there  is  a  republic  within 
the  ring  fence  of  a  country  residence,  which  is  not  kept 
comfortable  and  respectable  without  high  principles  and 
careful  statesmanship  in  its  daily  administration.  In 
America,  at  least,  the  rights  of  every  living  creature, 
from  men  and  women  servants,  to  horse,  cow  and  dog, 
had  better  be  well  understood  and  watchfully  respected. 
The  master  is  the  first  and  worst  sufferer,  otherwise. 
And  this  is  a  call  UDOU  the  character  for  its  better  quali- 


448  LETTERS      FROM     IDLEWILD. 

ties — injustice,  discrimination,  self-restraint,  dignity,  and 
willing  recognition  of  others'  wants  and  deservings — 
which  makes  country  life  a  school  for  the  mind  and 
heart.  There  is  said  to  be  danger  of  self-consequence  in 
the  dictatory  habit  of  having  a  little  world  like  a  rural 
household  to  control.  Men  are  sometimes  thought  to 
need  the  elbowing  and  insignificant-izing  of  cities.  But 
it  seems  to  me  that  the  immediateness  of  responsibility  to 
the  opinion  of  a  country  neighborhood,  is  even  a  better 
check  to  conceit  than  the  rebuke  of  mere  overlooking  by 
a  crowd  too  busy  to  notice  us  ;  and,  while  every  depen 
dant  and  every  animal  must  thus  be,  at  least,  kindly  and 
rightly  treated,  the  calls  for  good  qualities  in  ourselves 
are  much  too  grave  and  wholesome  to  have  any  inflating 
influence. 

The  complaints  as  to  servants,  in  American  country- 
houses,  are  loud  and  many  ;  and  it  is  probably  rare,  if 
not  altogether  impracticable,  to  have  the  order  and  com 
fort  of  an  English  manor-house,  in  our  republican  atmo 
sphere.  The  attempts  and  failures  are  driving  many  back 
to  a  division  of  the  seasons  between  watering-places  and 
town  life.  But,  with  a  willingness  to  forego  a  point  or 
two  of  the  show,  and  unlearn  some  little,  both  of  the 
dependence  and  the  unapproachabieness  of  the  English 
system,  an  American  country  household  may  have  all  its 
comforts  and  (philosophically  speaking)  be  at  a  wor- 


UPPER-SERVANTS      NOT     TOLERATED.      449 

tliier  and  more  natural  level  of  every-day  life  and  reci 
procities.  A  lesson  or  two  which  I  have  picked  out  of 
my  experience  at  Idlewild  may  be  instructive,  on  this 
point,  perhaps. 

Servants  are  natural  republicans — whatever  their 
nation  or  color — and  a  country-house  is  easiest  managed, 
I  have  more  and  more  come  to  believe,  where  each  indi 
vidual's  capacities  are  carefully  recognized  and  respected, 
and  where  the  general  opinion  of  the  household  is  allow 
ed  to  have  the  natural  influence  of  majorities.  With 
higher  wages,  of  course,  servants  can  be  made  to  stay, 
anywhere  ;  but,  as  justice  to  neighbors  requires  a  confor 
mity  to  the  common  standard  in  this  respect,  the  'differ 
ence  between  "  places  "  is  mainly  that  of  treatment  and 
incidental  agreeableness.  The  great  difficulty  in  an 
American  country-house  is  to  make,  servants  stay — the 
perpetual  renewal  of  them,  and  the  uncomfortableness  of 
strange  faces  and  unaccommodated  habits,  being,  at  pre 
sent,  our  national  difficulty  of  country  life. 

A  great  source  of  trouble  is  removed,  in  the  first 
place,  if  the  aristocracy  of  "upper  servants"  is  done 
away  with — no  American  kitchen  being  willing  to 
"  stand  the  airs"  of  people  between  them  and  their 
employers.  A  housekeeper,  a  dandy  coachman,  a  head- 
gardener  (or  tog/%-culturist),  and  a  butler,  form  the 
class  not  tolerated  in  the  country-life  of  a  republic  If 


450  LETTERS     FROM      IDLE WILD. 

the  mistress  of  the  house  shows  that  she  understands  the 
cook's  work,  and  the  chambermaid's  and  nurse's,  and 
gives  her  own  orders  with  equal  regularity  to  all,  the 
tempers  below  stairs  find  obedience  wonderfully  easier. 
But  the  coachman  is  the  most  common  trouble-maker. 
He  dresses  better,  has  more  display  and  pleasure  in  his 
particular  services,  uses  large  privileges  as  to  irregularity 
of  meals,  and  usually  ranks  himself  above  other  servants. 
This  aristocrat  may  be  got  rid  of,  by  having  the  vehicles 
so  constructed  that  the  master  can  do  his  own  driving  ; 
while  the  stable  work,  as  well  as  the  garden  and  farm 
work,  may  be  very  harmoniously  done,  if  the  master 
takes  the  trouble  to  be  the  one  who  gives  the  orders  and 
knows  most  about  it.  The  understanding  of  horse-manage 
ment  and  daily  overseeing  of  stable  and  garden,  furnish 
interest  and  occupation,  which,  I  think,  quite  compensate 
to  a  gentleman  for  any  style  he  may  thereby  forego.  And 
it  is  no  trifle,  besides,  to  be  so  able,  "  upon  a  push/'  to  har 
ness,  feed,  doctor  or  drive  one's  own  horses,  as  not  to  be  at 
the  mercy  of  a  coachman's  caprices  or  misrepresentations. 
Servants  are  human  beings  with  different  individual 
characters,  however  ;  and  there  are  chances  of  their  not 
remaining  contented,  even  in  thus  much  of  a  republic, 
unless  their  self-esteem  is  reasonably  cared  for,  and  unless 
they  are  made  to  feel  that  their  health,  comfort  and 
morals  are  subjects  of  responsible  oversight  on  the  part 


GOOD-NATURED     TIM.  451 

of  their  employers.  It  is  an  attention  to  these  particu 
lars  in  the  country  household,  which  must  compensate  to 
servants  for  the  distance  from  amusements  and  other 
differences  in  favor  of  town  service.  But  without  gene 
ralizing  farther,  I  will  give  an  instance  or  two  of  what 
has  been  the  "  salt  upon  the  tails  "  of  such  of  these  flit 
ting  birds  as  have  stayed  longest  at  Idlewild. 

Riding  along  the  road  one  day,  when  first  here,  I  met 
a  rosy -cheeked  Irish  lad  of  eighteen  or  twenty  years  of 
age,  with  a  stick  and  bundle  on  his  shoulders,  whose  open 
blue  eye  and  bright  smile,  as  he  asked  for  "  anny  sort  of 
job/'  took  my  fancy  at  once.  I  set  him  to  work  with  a 
shovel.  He  and  his  bundle  were  soon  at  home.  Too 
newly  from  Ireland  to  dodge  his  work,  however,  he 
was  an  unconscious  reproach  to  two  or  three  of  his 
countrymen  whose  wills  and  backs  were  more  Ameri 
canized,  and  to  whom  half  his  day's  digging  was  "  the 
dollar's  worth  ;"  and,  for  the  first  month  or  two  he  was 
somewhat  unpopular,  and  likely  to  be  plotted  or  worried 
into  a  change  of  place.  His  excessive  good  nature  over 
coming  this,  he  became  a  fixture,  and  worked  on  very 
steadily  for  a  year. 

But  there  was  another  rock  ahead.  The  eighteen  or 
twenty  words  with  which  he  asked  and  answered  common 
questions,  constituted  apparently  his  whole  capability  of 
language  ;  and,  in  some  other  respects,  he  seemed  to  be 


452  LETTERS      FROM      IDLEWILD. 

what  is  called  half-witted.  Among-  five  or  six  colored 
servants,  in-doors,  who  could  read  and  write,  and  three 
or  four  field  hands,  whose  intelligence  had  made  them 
prefer  farming  to  the  mere  drudgery  of  brick-yard  labor, 
Tim  naturally  became  a  butt.  They  laughed  at  him, 
while  they  liked  and  made  use  of  him.  But  this 
was  gradually  sapping  his  contentment  ;  and  there  were 
signs  that  his  drooping  self-esteem  was  looking  for  a 
more  favorable  climate  elsewhere,  when,  by  chance, 
I  discovered  a  new  quality  in  him.  Forgetting  to 
stake  out  a  curve  of  road  upon  which  he  was  digging, 
I  found  that  he  had  done  even  better  without  me — 
cutting  the  bend  most  correctly  and  artistically  with  his 
shovel.  He  had,  what  laborers  are  most  deficient  in, 
an  eye  for  beauty  in  a  line.  With  this  he  could  lay  out 
garden  paths  and  build  stone  walls,  a  change  of  work  to 
which  I  was  not  slow  in  promoting  him.  By  warm  praise 
and  calling  of  attention  to  the  cleverness  of  his  labors,  I 
soon  made  him  think  better  of  himself,  and,  with  that 
change,  vanished  all  disposition  to  "  quit."  Treated  with 
sufficiently  more  respect  in  the  kitchen,  Tim  has  stayed  on 
very  contentedly  for  another  year — though,  having  lately 
been  surprised  into  matrimony,  by  an  old  girl  in  the 
neighborhood  who  is  considerably  his  senior,  I  anticipate 
a  stammering  announcement,  before  long,  of  a  preference 
of  some  "  place  for  two." 


THE    ''SECOND    BOSS.''  453 

A  very  handsome  and  bright  table-servant,  a  mulatto 
lad,  for  whom  his  city  mother  is  very  ambitious,  would 
not  be  a  fixture  in  our  secluded  household,  probably,  but 
for  one  or  two  incidental  privileges.  With  the  younger 
children,  who  have  their  daily  lessons  from  their  mother, 
he  is  an  admitted  pupil  of  the  nursery,  and  fast  progress 
ing  in  the  rudimeutal  education  which  he  needed  ;  while, 
with  our  country  life  and  its  errands,  he  is  picking 
up  health  and  horsemanship — three  advantages  that,  for 
some  time  to  come,  may  induce  old  Sylvia,  his  mother,  to 
let  him  "  stay,"  though  she  looks  forward  to  seeing  him  a 
Broadway  hair-dresser,  at  least,  before  she  dies. 

But  the  most  threatening  torpedo,  among  the  sparks  of 
our  kitchen  cabinet,  is  the  maintenance  of  an  un-republi- 
can  luxury  of  my  own — what  the  men  stigmatize  as  a 
11  second  boss,"  and  what  I  deprecatingly  defend  as  a 
lesser-anxiety-man,  indispensable  to  one  of  my  profession 
and  state  of  health.  Several  hands  have  "  quit "  rather 
than  "  stand  Sam  Bell "  any  longer  ;  but  I  must  really 
exhaust  measures  and  compromises  before  I  dispense  with 
his  vice-to-idency.  It  is  difficult,  I  find,  to  make  work 
ing  men,  particularly  Irishmen,  understand  my  little  mud- 
puddle  infirmity  of  never  being  intellectually  clear  after  I 
am  once  "  riled  "  in  the  morning.  What  writing  I  am  to 
do  in  a  day,  must  be  done  before  my  thicker  sediment  is 
stirred  up — the  pellucid  reflecting  of  stars  and  butterflies 


454        LETTERS   FROM   IDLEWILD. 

being,  for  me,  a  simple  matter  of  tranquillity  after  settling 
over  night.  But  there  are  orders  to  be  given  before 
breakfast,  according  to  the  wear,  tear,  and  weather  of 
each  day — hay  cut  or  muck  carted,  horses  shod  or  cows 
hoppled,  fowls  killed  or  fences  mended,  feed  mixed, 
stray  pigs  caught,  harness  cleaned,  and  wheels  greased — 
contingencies  by  the  dozen,  which  require  each  morn 
ing's  separate  ordering  and  arranging.  The  "Missus" 
can't  do  it.  Messages  and  overnight  arrangements  are 
nothing  but  confusion.  There  must  be  a  "  boss  "  on  the 
spot,  weather-wise  and  plenipotential,  and  of  undisputed 
omniscience  as  to  the  befallings  of  pasture,  pig-stye  and 
stable. 

Xow,  Bell,  though  he  would  be  the  very  perfection  of 
a  premier  under  a  monarchical  Government,  is,  it  must 
be  owned,  a  little  stringent  and  imperative  in  measures 
and  language  for  a  vice-boss  in  a  seventy-acre  republic. 
I  found  him  on  the  spot.  He  was  the  tenant  of  the  small 
farm-cottage  on  the  river-bank,  paying  his  twenty-five- 
dollars-a-year  rent,  but  otherwise  independent — a  shad- 
fisherman  in  the  season,  a  boat-builder  in  the  winter,  a 
hand  on  board  a  river-steamer  now  and  then,  a  famous 
dambuilder,  quite  a  horse-doctor,  a  complete  farmer,  and 
enough  of  carpenter  and  blacksmith  to  make  anything 
"  do  for  the  present."  The  neighbors  were  so  sure  that  I 
should  not  agree,  for  three  days  together,  with  "  a  chap 


THE     COMPROMISE     POLICY.  455 

of  that  temper,"  and  warned  me  so  against  him  as  a 
permanency,  that,  in  re-letting  the  cottage  to  him,  I 
reserved  the  right  of  ejectment  at  will  ;  but,  up  to  the 
present  time  (now  nearly  three  years),  I  can  make  him 
out  to  be  nothing  but  a  downright  Truth  on  two  legs, 
with  the  Yankee  variety  of  accomplishments  above 
enumerated.  To  be  sure  he  wears  his  hat  in  the  parlor, 
sometimes,  and  drives  the  ladies  to  church  with  his  coat 
off  or  his  leg  hung  out  over  the  side  of  the  driver's  box  (to 
be  comfortable)  ;  and  he  speaks  his  mind  like  a  pump,  to 
me  or  anybody  else  that  stirs  the  handle  ;  but  I  would 
call  upon  him  to-morrow,  sooner  than  upon  any  other 
man  in  the  world,  to  break  his  neck  for  me,  or  tell  me  the 
truth  about  a  horse,  or  see  the  last  of  me  with  the  plague, 
or  swim  the  river  for  a  Doctor,  or  corner  a  rattle-snake, 
or  kill  a  mad  dog.  And  as  such  possibilities  make  one 
value  a  man,  I  have  a  partiality  for  Bell  which  makes  me 
spare  no  pains  to  make  him  otherwise  popular.  He  will 
make  no  compromises  himself ;  but  in  various  trifles,  I 
bring  the  compensatory  policy  to  bear.  By  putting  the 
horses  and  wagons  entirely  under  his  control,  the  cook  or 
chambermaid  has  to  ask  Bell  if  she  has  shopping  to  do, 
and  wants  a  ride  to  Newburgh.  The  men  know,  that,  if 
they  wish  anything  extra,  a  day's  holiday  or  any 
indulgence  or  change  of  labor,  Bell's  kind-hearted  reasonr 
ableness  is  easier  worked  upon  than  mine.  He  is  th* 


456  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE  WILD. 

dispenser  of  all  favors,  and,  so,  forgiven  for  many  a  sharp 
look  and  blunt  word.  The  fact  is,  that  the  kitchen 
majority  are  always  in  favor  of  his  harsh  honesty  and  his 
certainty  of  being  right,  though  the  individual  sufferer 
may  rebel  and  "  quit."  And  as  Bell's  wages  are  no 
higher  than  the  other  men's,  and  he  certainly  out-works 
any  one  of  them,  at  any  sort  of  job,  his  boss-ocracy 
cannot  rightfully  be  offensive  to  their  republicanism. 

With  our  cities  getting  overcrowded,  and  country 
residences  becoming  more  and  more  desired  as  railways 
make  them  more  and  more  accessible,  it  is  well  to  show, 
with  some  particularity,  what  difficulties  are  in  the  way. 
A  system  of  household  republics,  is  worth  perfecting  and 
MAKING  NATIONAL — at  least  until  we  aristosratize  suffi 
ciently  (which  I  think  we  shall  never  do)  to  have  an 
unthinking  and  unthought-of  class  for  our  domestics,  and 
household  service  a  mere  matter  of  obedient  machinery. 
The  display  that  we  must  necessarily  forego,  and  the 
more  personal  and  immediate  share  that  employers  must 
necessarily  take  in  the  duties  and  sympathies  of  their 
dependents,  to  carry  out  these  little  rural  republics,  will 
not  be  differences  from  European  life  which  we  need  very 
greatly  regret. 


m  for  Inhlfos  0nlj, 


20 


INVADIDS      ASK      FOR      INFORMATION.      459 


LETTER   LXIY. 

Invalid  Wishes  for  Letters  on  their  Class  of  Subjects— Boston  Physician  and  his 
Alkaline  Treatment— Experiment  and  its  Failure— Consumption  and  its  Alle 
viations,  &c.,  <fec. 

August  5, 1854. 

IT  would  be  natural  to  think  that  nothing  new  could  be 
said  to  invalids.  And,  probably,  nothing  can.  The 
invalid  appetite  for  more,  however— based,  doubtless, 
upon  the  desponding  heart's  communicative  craving  for 
sympathy,  rather  than  from  expectation  of  learning  any 
untold  secret  of  cure — seems  to  continue  lively.  I  had 
written,  I  thought,  as  much  as  the  modesty  of  print 
would  bear,  of  my  personal  experiences  in  struggling 
with  pulmonary  disease— dating,  with  a  certain  degree 
of  justification,  from  a  home  in  the  Highland  Chelten 
ham,  to  which  sufferers  under  this  our  country's  prevail 
ing  ailment  are  medically  sent.  But  letters,  asking 
opinion  as  to  medicines,  systems  of  cure,  climate,  &c., 
thicken  daily  upon  me,  and,  as  a  large  proportion  of 
these  are  from  clergymen  (the  class  oftenest  stricken 
by  consumption),  I  still  have,  perhaps,  in  my  experience 
and  multiplicity  of  kind  counsel  from  others,  a  casting 


460  LETTERS      FROM      IDLEWILfr. 

weight  to  throw.  On  one  point,  certainly — my  own  rash 
experiment  of  a  new  system,  with  disastrous  effects  on 
my  progress  and  condition  of  health — I  can  speak 
instructively. 

With  the  letter  from  a  Boston  physician,  published 
not  long  since  in  the  Home  Journal,  I  presume  the 
invalid  reader  to  be  familiar.  Coming  from  one  who 
was  a  stranger  to  me,  it  was  written  in  a  spirit  of  Chris 
tian  kindness  that  inspired  immediate  confidence  ;  while 
the  ability,  good  sense,  directness,  and  novelty  withal,  of 
the  medical  advice,  was  like  the  sound  of  a  trumpet 
to  the  army  of  despairing  consumptives.  Letters 
requesting  to  know  the  name  and  address  of  the  writer 
have  poured  upon  me  from  a  continuous  multitude  of 
those  wishing  personal  consultation,  while  the  newspapers 
of  the  country  have  so  generally  copied  the  theory  and  its 
brief  directions,  that  the  knowledge  of  it,  at  least,  must 
be  almost  universal.  I  have  heard  of  very  numerous 
cases  of  experiment  without  farther  counsel  than  the 
perusal  of  it. 

To  my  grateful  expression  of  thanks  for  this  kind  phy 
sician's  interest,  I  received  a  second  truly  admirable  let 
ter,  accompanied  with  the  requisite  internal  medicines 
and  directions  more  minute.  As  my  homoeopathic  aids 
to  convalescence  had,  for  some  little  time,  seemed  to 
have  weakened  or  changed  in  their  action  upon  my  sys- 


CAUTION      TO      INVALIDS.  461 

tern,  and  my  friends  warned  me  that  I  was  losing- 
ground,  I  was  the  more  willing  to  try  the  new  remedy- 
misgiving,  however,  that,  in  a  certain  passage  of  the  doc 
tor's  letter,  where  he  mistrusts  the  wisdom  of  "pre 
scribing  for  a  patient  at  Idlewild  and  his  fingers  at  Bos 
ton,"  there  was  a  difficulty  I  should  first  remove  by 
going  to  him.  And  that  misgiving  was  my  good  angel, 
to  whose  "  still,  small  voice  "  I  gave  too  little  heed.  So 
skilful  a  physician  would  have  said  probably,  at  once,  on 
seeing  me,  that  his  prescription  was  based  upon  very  dif 
ferent  phases  of  disease  ;  and  it  is  to  inspire,  a  much  need 
ed  caution  on  this  point,  that  I  have  now  resumed  the  subject. 
Invalids  are  so  apt  to  clutch,  as  I  thus  did,  at  a  remedy, 
without  first  making  certain  that  it  is  their  form  of  dis 
ease  to  which  it  is  suited. 

With  my  unconquerable  night-coughs  and  hemorrhages 
for  the  groundwork  of  his  theory,  the  doctor,  it  will 
be  remembered,  says  : — 

"  In  all  cases  like  yours  the  skin  does  not  perform  its  office.  * 
The  system  is  surcharged,  overflowing  with  acidity*" 
11  Admit  these  facts,  and  what  is  the  conclusion  of  the  whole  mat 
ter  ?    It  is  this  : — Take  a  warm  alkaline  bath,  say  twice  a  week." 

*  *  ':  Next,  but  not  second  in  importance,  night  and  day  sur 
round  the  chest  with  a  soap-jacket,  made  of  flannel  and  spread 
with  the  darkest  brown  soap  (being  strongest  with  the  alkali), 
melted  to  the  consistence  of  a  thick  paste  with  a  little  boiling 


462  LETTERS      FROM      IDLEWILD. 

water.    '      :    '-'Use   a  simple,   pure  alkali,  internally,  to  neu 
tralize  the  acidity  already  there." 


It  was  the  latter  part  of  May,  and  the  very  warm 
weather  was  already  commencing  when  I  entered  upon 
the  alkaline  treatment.  The  "  soap-jacket,"  of  course, 
could  not  be  worn  without  a  second  flannel  shirt  over 
it,  to  keep  in  its  paste  and  moisture,  and  here  was 
my  first  trouble.  So  excessive  was  the  perspiration, 
night  and  day,  with  the  impermeable  closeness 
of  the  covering,  that  I  was  sensibly  weakened  and 
distressed  for  breath,  while  exercise  was  nearly  impossi- 
and  every  puff  of  air  seemed  to  give  me  a  cold.  My 
voice  weakened,  by  the  third  day,  so  that  I  could  scarcely 
articulate,  my  head  seemed  crammed  with  an  hourly 
increasing  catarrh,  I  felt  the  return  of  some  old  rheumatic 
symptoms,  the  muscles  of  my  face  and  eyes  showed  rapid 
exhaustion,  and  my  family,  much  alarmed,  insisted  on  a 
stoppage  of  the  treatment.  I  thought  it  best  to  make  a 
fair  trial  of  it,  however,  and  strictly  followed  the  direc 
tions  till  the  eighth  day— when  the  "  internal  alkali" 
had  so  completely  deadened  the  coats  of  my  stomach  and 
destroyed  the  tone,  that  I  feared  I  should  be  unable 
to  take  the  nourishment  necessary  for  life.  I  had  the 
sensation  of  being  tanned  inwardly  to  sole-leather,  scarce 
able  to  taste  the  differences  in  food  and  drinks,  and  pal- 


THE    ''ALKALI    CURE.''  463 

pably  burthening  nature  with  every  morsel  I  swallowed. 
And,  as  in  all  my  previous  illness  I  had  never  before 
failed  to  have  appetite  proportionate  to  exercise,  and 
had  known  no  feeling  of  discomfort  inwardly  except  from 
the  convulsion  of  the  cough,  I  was  sure  that  the  internal 
effect,  at  least,  was  injurious.  My  hemorrhages,  mean 
time,  grew  more  profuse,  and,  as  I  persisted  in  my  rides, 
the  least  motion  of  the  horse  beyond  a  walk  brought  the 
blood  to  my  mouth  abundantly. 

With  the  giving  up  of  the  alkalis  on  the  eighth  day, 
I  found  myself  more  ill  than  I  had  ever  previously  been. 
There  was  no  sign  that  the  antagonist  adds  had  been  en 
countered,  or  that  anything  but  poor  weakened  Nature 
herself  had  received  the  deadly  ammunition  of  the  alkalis. 
With  the  resuming  of  my  former  un-medicinal  system, 
however,  I  began  to  rally  again.  The  vigorous  use  of 
flesh-brush  and  crash-towels  before  and  after  cold  baths 
in  the  morning,  a  more  generous  diet,  and  a  free  horse, 
brought  me  gradually  up  ;  and,  now  (after  seven  weeks), 
I  am  once  more  where  the  alkalis  began  with  me.  An 
other  patient  who  made  the  same  experiment  (a  distin 
guished  officer  of  the  army  who  had  brought  consumption 
home  from  his  campaigns  in  Mexico),  but  whose  first  re 
sult  from  the  alkalis,  unlike  mine,  was  a  relief,  has  since 
died  under  the  treatment.  With  the  publicity  which  I 
have  unexpectedly  given  to  the  "  alkali  cure,"  and  a  con- 


464  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE  WILD. 

fidence  thus  indirectly  expressed  in  it,  it  is  but  just, 
perhaps,  that  I  should  declare  my  own  belief  that  it  is 
likely  to  be  wholly  misapplied,  and,  in  any  case,  dangerous 
without  the  best  of  medical  counsel  and  supervision. 

Of  the  unusual  professional  frankness  of  the  writer  of 
the  letter,  and  of  his  high  moral  and  intellectual  tone  of 
study,  sympathy  and  duty,  no  one  could  doubt,  who  has 
read  it.  The  proof  is  the  universal  confidence  it  inspired, 
and  the  numbers  who  have  since  sought  him  out  with 
great  eagerness  for  advice.  With  personal  knowledge 
of  a  patient,  the  danger  of  his  theory,  I  doubt  not,  would 
be  obviated  by  his  conscientious  making  first  certain  of 
its  fitness  to  the  case.  It  is  not  wonderful  that  all  man 
ner  of  sick  people  do  not  get  the  full  attention  of  the  over 
worked  best  doctors,  and  that  this  same  making  first  cer 
tain  is  somewhat  rare.  It  is  for  this  reason  that  a  phy 
sician  as  an  intimate  friend  is  invaluable — one  who  will 
make  an  untiring  enthusiasm  of  your  cure — while  one 
who  gives  you  ten  minutes  and  one  or  two  looks  and 
touches,  and  a  little  uninterested  listening,  at  a  profes 
sional  hour,  is  a  risk,  to  say  the  least.  Fortunately,  nine 
out  of  ten  of  the  medicines  for  every  disease  are  pre 
scribed  by  Nature — fresh  air,  exercise,  control  of  habits 
and  appetite,  etc.,  etc.-  -but  it  is  not  too  much  to  add, 
that  nine  points  out  of  ten  of  medical  advice  also,  are 
given  by  Nature.  The  utter  faith  with  which  the  sick 


THE     WAY     TO     GET     ''ADVICE.'7  465 

receive  and  follow  the  hasty  opinion  of  a  doctor,  and  the 
utter  inattention  to  the  complainings  and  promptings  of 
their  own  pain-taught  and  truth-telling  nerves,  organs 
and  senses,  is  a  giving  up  of  the  whole  business  to  a  tenth 
committee-man,  who,  by  rights,  should  only  be  one  in  a 
consultation.  "  It  has  surprised  me  more  than  anything 
else,"  says  a  very  sensible  man,  writing  his  experience  in 
consumption,  "  to  find  how  many  different  opinions  I  have 
received,  in  regard  to  the  seat  of  my  disease,  from  physi 
cians  of  high  standing."  In  fact  the  five-minute  omni 
science  that  is  expected  of  doctors  is  expecting  too  much. 
It  would  be  much  wiser  to  go  first  to  a  careful  lawyer, 
who  will  sit  down  and  cross-examine  you,  put  your  symp 
toms  into  condensed  and  comprehensible  language,  recon 
cile  your  contradictions,  sift  off  your  reluctancies  and  su 
perfluities,  and  take  the  side-evidence  of  your  friends  and 
attendants  ;  and  from  this  prepare  a  digest  of  what  you 
yourself  know  of  your  case,  which  the  physician  can  read 
while  he  looks  at  you  and  feels  your  pulse  for  the  pro 
fessional  corroborations.  In  no  shorter  way,  I  am  in 
clined  to  think,  will  any  common  patient  get  the  best  ad 
vice  from  a  "  physician  with  extensive  practice." 

And  now  shall  I  stop  ? — or  may  we,  dear  invalid  rea 
der,  safely  gossip  away  another  half-hour  upon  our  theme 
of  sympathies  ? 

I  think  there  is  a  grain  of  truth  for  us  in  almost  every 
20* 


466  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE  WILD. 

theory  of  cure — something  in  hydropathy,  something  in 
"  kneading  and  pommelling  the  stomach,"  something  in 
"inhalations,"  something  in  raising  the  siege  of  the 
disease  by  counter-irritation,  or  by  dislodgment  and 
change  of  action  with  homoeopathic  alternations,  etc.,  etc., 
etc.  By  judicious  care  and  counsel  we  may  combine  a 
self-treatment  front  two  or  more  of  these  "  positive  cures 
for  consumption," — particularly,  from  such  as  involve  no 
use  of  violent  medicines,  or  are  mainly  alleviative — thus 
keeping  prudence  awake  and  encouraging  hope,  even  if 
we  do  not  stumble  by  chance  on  the  specific  for  our  par 
ticular  case.  In  homoeopathy,  however — as  administered 
by  a  prophet  in  its  secrets  like  Doctor  Gray  of  New 
York — I  may  express  my  individual  "  settling  down  "  of 
faith  and  preference. 

But  consumption,  mourned  over  as  it  is,  seems  to  me 
a  gentle  untying  of  the  knot  of  life,  instead  of  the  sud 
den  and  harsh  tearing  asunder  of  its  threads  by  other 
disease — a  tenderness  in  the  destroying  angel,  as  it  were, 
which  greatly  softens,  for  some,  his  inevitable  errand  to 
all.  It  is  a  decay  with  little  or  no  pain,  insensible  almost 
in  its  progress,  delayed,  sometimes,  year  after  year,  in  its 
more  fatal  approaches.  And  it  is  not  alone  in  its  indul 
gent  prolonging  and  deferring  that  consumption  is  like  a 
blessing.  The  cords  which  it  first  loosens  are  the  coarser 
ones  most  confining  to  the  mind.  The  weight  of  the  ma- 


ILLNESS  INDUCES  NEW  ESTIMATES.  461 

terial  senses  is  gradually  taken  from  the  soul  with  the 
lightening  of  their  food  and  the  lessening  of  their  strength. 
Probably,  till  he  owns  himself  an  invalid,  no  man  has 
ever  given  the  wings  of  his  spirit  room  enough — few,  if 
any,  have  thought  to  adjust  the  ministerings  to  body  and 
soul  so  as  to  subdue  the  senses  to  their  secondary  place 
and  play.  With  illness  enough  for  this,  and  not  enough 
to  distress  or  weaken — with  consumption,  in  other  words, 
as  most  commonly  experienced — the  mind  becomes  con 
scious  of  a  wonderfully  new  freedom  and  predominance. 
Things  around  alter  their  value.  Estimates  of  persons 
and  pursuits  strangely  change.  Nature  seems  as  newly 
beautiful  as  if  a  film  had  fallen  from  the  eyes.  The  purer 
affections,  the  simpler  motives,  the  humbler  and  more 
secluded  reliances  for  sympathy,  are  found  to  have  been 
the  closest-linked  with  thoughts  bolder  and  freer.  Who 
has  not  wondered  at  the  cheerfulness  of  consumptive  per 
sons  ?  It  is  because,  with  the  senses  kept  under  by  in 
valid  treatment,  there  is  no  "  depression  of  spirit." 
With  careful  regimen,  and  the  system  purified  and  disci 
plined,  life,  what  there  is  of  it,  is  in  the  most  exhilarating 
balance  of  its  varied  proportions.  Death  is  not  dreaded 
where  there  is,  thus,  such  a  conscious  breaking  through 
of  the  wings  of  another  life,  freer  and  higher. 


468  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE  WILD. 


LETTER  LXV. 

Affection  for  our  Doctors — Excellent  Letter  from  my  Friend  of  the  Alkali — Taboo 
upon  Tea — Letter  from  an  Allopathic  Physician — Doctor's  Visits,  &c.,  &c. 

August  26, 1854. 

WE  love  our  doctors.  It  is  a  question  whether  they 
do  not  get  more  than  their  share  of  human  affection — 
more,  at  least,  than  they  can  very  well  know  what  to  do 
with  (for  doctors,  like  other  "  great  guns,"  have  their 
bore,  showing  what  they  can  "carry").  Just  now, 
indeed,  I  am  beginning  to  think  one  of  them  a  whole 
castle,  with  a  battery  of  patients*  to  defend  him — the 
last  few  mails  fairly  bombarding  me  with  letters  in  vindi 
cation  of  the  Boston  physician,  of  whose  "  alkaline  treat 
ment  "  I  had  ventured  to  announce  my  own  unsuccessful 
experiment.  With  his  personal  advice  and  supervision,  it 
seems  (by  their  loud  report)  to  be  a  very  different  thing. 
They  speak  most  enthusiastically  and  gratefully  of  it  and 

*  A  distinguished  literary  man  is  among  these,  and  also  the  brother-in-law  of 
one  of  our  ablest  Professors.  They  both  recommend  a  publication  of  their 
statements  of  having  greatly  benefited  by  the  personal  advice  and  prescription 
of  this  physician,  for  whose  name  they  had  applied  on  reading  his  letter  in  the 
Home  Journal. 


VALUABLE     SUGGESTIONS.  469 

him.  That  he  is  a  very  able  and  purely  philanthropic 
man,  we  are  very  sure  that  no  can  one  doubt  who  has  read 
his  letters  ;  and  his  practice,  professionally,  seems  to  be 
as  effective  and  fascinating  as  his  pen.  There  is,  by  the 
way,  in  the  second  letter  which  he  so  kindly  addressed  to 
me,  upon  my  own  complaints,  a  passage  full  of  valuable 
suggestion  for  invalids,  and,  with  the  Doctor's  permission, 
we  will  share  it  among  us.  He  says  : — 

"  The  alkali  which  I  commonly  use  is  soda  ;  a  saturated  solution, 
impregnated  with,  rather  than  containing,  some  preparation  of 
iron,  generally  the  carbonate.  Why  the  Creator  placed  both  iron 
and  soda  as  constituent  elements  in  all  healthy  blood,  I  need 
not  inquire.  It  is  sufficient  to  the  medical  man  that  such  is  the 
fact.  And,  in  cases  like  yours,  where  as  you  admit,  there  is  an 
excess  of  acidity  in  the  system,  I  need  not  demonstrate  that  the 
blood  must  necessarily  be  deprived  of  these  to  a  greater  or  less 
extent.  An  acid  will  neutralize  and  destroy  an  alkali.  If 
deprived  of  them,  the  blood  must  become  thickened.  If  thickened, 
will  it,  can  it,  circulate  as  freely  in  the  extremities  and  smaller 
vessels  ?  If  not  in  these,  must  there  not  be  increased  congestion 
of  the  large  vessels  which  are  on  the  chest  and  brain — in  the  more 
vascular  parts  of  the  system  ?  If  undue  pressure  there,  would 
there  not  be  increased  tendency  to  hemorrhage,  whether  once  a 
month  or  once  in  two  months  ? 

'•  But  it  is  in  vain  that  you  attempt  to  correct  this,  unless  acids, 
and  all  articles  which  become  acid  in  the  stomach,  are  strictly, 
rigidly  avoided.  Every  individual  has  his  dietic  idiosyncracies, 
so  to  say  :  and  the  old  proverb  is  that  '  a  man  at  thirty,  as  to  his 


4  tO  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE WILD. 

diet,  is  either  a  physician  or  a  fool.'  What  may  become  acidulous 
with  one,  may  not  with  another.  But  a  patient  should  notice  his 
own  peculiarities,  and  make  his  diet  conform  to  the  rule  given. 
Generally,  I  advise  to  avoid  all  acids,  vinegar  in  all  its  diguises — 
pies,  cakes,  preserves  ;  puddings,  except  sago,  tapioca,  arrow-root, 
etc.,  and  these  to  be  used  without  sweet  sauces — all  fruits,  whether 
foreign  or  domestic.  If  once  or  twice  in  the  season  the  rule  is 
relaxed  to  freshen  the  memory  with  these  articles,  it  is  in  favor  of 
a  few  ripe  whortleberries,  or  a  ripe  sweet  peach  at  breakfast.  And 
last  but  not  least,  I  forbid  tea  and  coffee. 

11  Of  the  necessity  of  this  last,  it  is  often  very  difficult  to  con 
vince  patients.  It  is  no  argument  to  say,  '  all  the  world  uses 
them.'  I  answer,  '  to  the  pure  all  things  are  pure,'  and  to  the 
healthy  all  things  are  innocent  in  a  measure.  It  is  the  system  in 
a  particular  state  to  which  I  refer.  But  patients  say,  '  tea  or 
coffee  makes  me  feel  much  brighter!'  I  know  they  come 
with  a  soothing  promise.  I  know  Abdel  Kader  said  of  coffee  : — 
'  It  is  the  drink  of  the  people  of  God !'  And  I  often  think 
of  the  description  of  tea,  said  to  have  been  given  by  an 
ambassador  of  the  '  flowery  kingdom,'  on  introducing  it  at  the 
court  of  Thibet: — 'It  is,' said  he,  'a  beverage  which  quenches 
thirst,  and  mitigates  sorrow!'  And,  to  the  student,  especially 
with  a  sensitive  organization,  and  one  whose  susceptibility  to 
stimulus  has  not  been  vitiated  by  a  resort  to  more  potent  stimuli, 
its  first  effect  is  so  spirituelle,  so  refreshing,  so  delightful ! 
But,  to  a  disordered  and  enfeebled  digestive  system,  they  impart 
no  more  permanent  strength,  than  the  whip  and  spur  give  strength 
to  the  jaded,  worn-out  racer.  I  should  strenuously  advise  you  to 
exorcise  the  tea.  I  am  aware  that  Liebig  has  advanced  the  idea 
that  tea  may  possibly  increase  the  secretion  of  bile,  and,  in  this 


TABOO      UPON      TEA.  471 

view,  you  might  think  it  perhaps  beneficial  in  your  occasional 
bilious  derelictions.  But  we  all  know  that  it  contains  tannic 
acid,  and  my  experience  is,  that  it  is  injurious  where  the  vigor  of 
the  digestive  system  is  at  all  impaired,  and  where  it  is  used  warm. 
As  a  substitute,  you  have  iced  milk,  if  your  stomach  will  tolerate 
it ;  or,  better  still,  the  antediluvian  beverage,  cold  water.  Aside 
from  everything  else,  I  should  urge  cold  fluids  in  all  cases  where 
there  is  a  tendency  to  hemorrhage.  And  the  water,  depend  upon 
it,  will  give  a  more  substantial,  reliable  vigor  for  the  day's  work, 
than  tea  or  coffee.  If,  remembering  whom  I  have  the  pleasure  of 
addressing,  a  line  of  poetry  in  a  medical  letter,  would  not  be  out 
of  place,  I  would  add,  that  there  is  as  much  scientific  truth  as 
poetic  beauty  in  the  words  which  say  of  '  a  cup  of  water,'  that 

'  Its  draught 

Of  cool  refreshment,  drained  by  fevered  lips, 
Will  give  a  shock  of  pleasure  to  the  frame,' 
More  exquisite  than  when  nectarean  juice 
Renews  the  life  of  joy  in  happiest  hours.' 

"  The  horseback  exercise,  though  I  do  not  believe  with  Syden- 
ham,  that,  '  with  bark,  it  is  a  cure  for  consumption,'  yet  it  is 
excellent  for  exercise— nothing  better." 

The  taboo  upon  tea,  in  this  passage  of  dietetics,  touches 
invalids  upon  a  tender  point.  Without  tea  the  despond 
ing  sick  man  is  a  monotone  indeed — his  life  one  note  (and 
that  I  flat)  from  morn  till  night,  and  from  night  till  morn 
again.  If  the  spirits  need  to  be  medicined  as  well  as  the 
body  (as  sometimes  they  do),  may  there  not  be  a  natural 
want  of  some  such  preventive  against  men  platitude? 


472  LETTERS      FROM      I  OLE  WILD. 

The  Indian,  in  Ms  journey  through  the  wilderness,  climbs 
once  a  day  into  a  tall  tree,  to  get  the  range  of  his  weary 

steps,  and  keep  acquainted  with  the  sky  and  the  horizon 

overlooking,  for  that  brief  moment,  at  least,  that  which 
overshadows  his  path  and  confines  his  view.     To  be  able 
to  see  far  and  generalize,  once  a  day,  is,  experience  tells 
a  man,  a  necessity  in  this  be-littling  world,  even  with  the 
best  of  health.     In  sickness,  it  is  often  a  necessity— al 
ways  a  compensating  luxury  and  consolation.     The  grate 
ful  stimulus  of  the  tea-cup  need  not  be  taken  in  excess. 
With  the  system  made  delicate  and  sensitive,  a  very  weak 
tea  serves  for  the  elation  of  the  spirits— what  is  com 
monly  called  the  "English  breakfast  tea,"  the  most  in 
nocent  as  well  as  full-flavored  of  these  precious  leaves  of 
the   Orient,  being   (for  me  at  least)    stimulus  enough. 
Without  assenting  to  Dr.  Johnson's  punning  demand,  in 
his  parody  of  Horace  : — 

.,"  TEA,  sole  oriente,  TEA,  decente,  requiro, 

the  morning  cup  might  be  safely  insisted  on  by  the  inva 
lid—though  the  "te"  of  the  Latin  poet  was  probably 
more  agreeable  at  evening. 

From  his  inexorability  on  this  point,  and  the  trenchant 
unsparingness  of  his  favorite  theory  of  soap-cure,  I  fancy 
that  my  Boston  correspondent  is  a  young  man.  Another 
physician,  equally  a  stranger  to  me,  but  animated  by  the 


ANOTHER     LETTER      ON      DIETETICS.       4t3 

same  genial  sympathy  and  kindness,  writes  to  me  with 
the  prefatory  remark  that  he  has  been  twenty-five  years 
a  practitioner  of  medicine,  and  his  opinion  as  to  diete 
tics,  seems  to  have  grown  more  indulgent  with  experience. 
I  must  quote  a  passage  from  his  letter  (though,  like  the 
other,  intended  for  a  private  one),  the  professional  libe 
rality  and  well-acquired  convictions  with  which  he  writes, 
making  it  of  value  to  all  invalids  : — 

*  *  "  You  should  banish  from  your  mind,  if  you  ever  enter 
tained  it,  all  notion  of  specifics  for  your  malady.  Such  do  not 
exist  for  consumption,  nor  for  any  disease.  The  most  that  drugs 
can  do  is  to  palliate  till  Nature  can  relieve.  The  cure  is  to  be 
sought  in  other  influences  ;  such  especially  as  promote  the  func 
tions  of  digestion,  assimilation,  and  absorption.  The  course  which 
you  first  adopted,  of  horseback  exercise,  cold  bathing,  friction, 
and  free  exposure  to  the  air,  was  well  adapted  to  these  ends — es 
pecially  if  connected  with  a  nutritious  diet,  chiefly  of  animal  food, 
and  aided  by  good  malt  liquor,  such  as  London  porter,  or  Calton 
ale.  The  cod-liver  oil  I  should  have  wished  you  to  continue,  at 
the  same  time,  and  I  should  have  prescribed,  also,  ten  or  fifteen 
grains  of  tartarized  iron,  to  be  taken  three  times  a  day.  If  this 
course,  persevered  in,  would  not  avert  your  disease,  I  doubt 
whether  anything  would.  If  the  appetite  and  digestion  continue 
good,  however,  there  is  always  strong  encouragement  that  the  dis 
ease  may  be  overcome.  Sustain  the  appetite  and  digestion  by 
out-door  exercise,  friction,  cold  baths,  etc.,  and  hope  confidently 
for  restoration.  An  issue  in  the  arm,  or  below  the  clavicle,  would 
be  very  likely,  in  such  a  case  as  yours,  to  afford  considerable  relief 


414  LETTERS      FROM     IDLE  WILD. 

by  its  revulsive  influence.      If  malt  liquors  do  not  agree  with 
you,  use  a  little  pure  brandy,  or  sherry  or  Madeira  wine." 

It  is  easy  to  see  why  we  love  doctors,  when  they  dis 
course  to  us  so  cheeringly  and  earnestly  on  what  concerns 
ourselves  only.  In  fact,  sickness  has  its  pleasant  compen 
sations.  It  is  one  end  of  a  completing  circle  of  experience 
that  very  nearly  touches  the  other.  Many  a  day  of  health 
is  less  happy  than  many  a  day  of  sickness.  A  faithful 
joy-ometer,  could  we  keep  one,  might  surprise  us  with 
its  comparative  average  of  the  rise  and  full  of  content 
ment's  varying  quicksilver,  when  well  or  when  ill.  Could 
any  possible  morning  call  equal  the  interest  of  the  doc 
tor's  visit  ?  And  convalescence  1  The  happiness  of  that 
is  among  the  experiences  of  life  which  it  is  wonderful 
should  be  unsung.  To  how  many,  has  the  month  of  con 
valescence  been  the  month  oftenest  remembered  and 
wished  for  again— health  and  honeymoon  forgotten  while 
this  is  thought  of ! 


DIETETIC      INDISCRETIONS.  4t5 


LETTER  LXYI. 

Chat  upon  Invalid  Indiscretions— Dietetics  of  the  Soul— Forenoon  on  Horse 
back use  of  an  Errand  in  a  Ride — Steel  Pens,  and  the  consequent  Decline 

of  Penknives— Fatigue  after  Pleasure,  &c.,  &c. 

September  9, 1S54. 

SHALL  we  chat  of  our  indiscretions  of  appetite,  this 
morning — I  giving  you  (with  invalid  freedom  to  digress, 
if  temptation  offer)  the  history  of  a  dietetic  irregularity 
of  mine  ?  Nature  "  breaks  diet "  occasionally,  with  a 
freshet,  and  it  evidently  does  Nature  good — clearing 
away  the  insensible  accretions,  and  reaching  the  dull 
deposits  in  otherwise  inaccessible  corners.  Even  with 
the  flow  of  the  daily  life-stream  hopelessly  diminished,  it 
is  still  pleasant  to  know  where  was  the  channel,  and 
where  once  reached  the  bubbles — is  it  not  ? 

My  "  spree,"  I  should  premise,  was  not  a  violation  of 
the  dietetics  of  the  stomach.  To  these  I  have  found 
no  great  trouble  to  be  constant.  In  fact,  with  salads 
and  lobsters,  champagne,  pastry  and  pickles,  gravies, 
garnishings  and  "  good  things »  generally,  I  closed  my 
mortal  accounts  without  a  sigh— possibly  with  an  eye  to 


476  LETTERS     FROM     IDLE  WILD. 

business,  in  my  resignation,  however,  as  I  found  that  the 
"  single  dish  "  of  the  doctor's  prescription  made  its  way 
much  quicker,  without  company,  to  that  finger's  end  that 
picks  adjectives  and  pronouns.  Industry  of  pen  increases 
by  what  might  lessen  industry  of  the  plough. 

A  German  physician,  Ernest  Yon  Feuchtersleben,  has 
written  upon  the  "  Dietetics  of  the  Soul."  The  book 
has  passed  through  seven  editions,  in  the  original,  and  is 
now  just  translated  and  published  by  Francis  and  Co.,  in 
Boston.  It  shows  us  how  we  "  break  diet "  (too  often) 
with  our  sins  of  passion  and  imagination,  and  how  we 
may  care  for  our  bodily  health,  and  obtain  convalescence 
and  cure,  by  strict  regimen  of  the  temper  and  the  intel 
lect.  I  mention  this  to  justify  what  might  seem  like 
a  fancifulness  on  my  part — the  speaking  of  other  dietetics 
than  those  of  meat  and  drink.  Von  Feuchtersleben 
(to  plunder  an  idea  for  the  gentler  gender  as  we  go) 
even  thinks  beauty  is  attainable,  or  recoverable  by  this 
fancy-pathy.  He  quotes  from  a  celebrated  German 
lady,  who  says  : — "  Persons  like  ourselves  can  only 
become  healthy  by  feeling  the  greatest  disgust  at  illness, 
and  placing  implicit  reliance  on  the  axiom  that  health  is 
most  lovely  and  loveable." 

But,  not  to  have  my  will  of  a  whole  day  of  summer,  is 
the  dietetic  that  has  troubled  me  most.  You  know  how 
it  is,  dear  pulmonary  brother  !  The  appetite  for  out  of 


AN      IRRESISTIBLE     FORENOON.  471 

doors,  with  free  abandonment  to  the  chances  of  idleness, 
keener  and  more  appreciative  as  its  relish  has  become — 
is  still  lessened  in  the  lime  it  can  sustain  itself.  It  mnst 
be  a  short  walk,  though  with  exquisite  enjoyment  of  sun 
shine  and  air— a  brief  ride,  though  with  exhilarating 
sense  of  pulses  quickened  by  motion.  The  eyes  tire  and 
the  soul  shuts,  in  the  very  middle  of  a  study  of  a  land 
scape  at  which  the  first  glance  was  enchantment.  A 
whole  morning  is  a  meal  for  a  man  in  the  glory  of  health. 
A  sunset  with  a  long  summer  twilight — that  is  a  feast 
which  must  have  been  prepared  for  by  abstinence  ;  by 
late  rising  and  a  forenoon  of  in-doors.  And  the  over 
tasking  of  the  powers  of  attention,  I  find — fatigue  of 
the  sense  of  beauty,  or  a  surfeit  of  agreeable  people — 
acts  immediately  on  the  bodily  health.  It  starts  a 
hemorrhage.  It  aggravates  a  cough. 

There  came  a  forenoon,  however — (those  who  know 
the  differences  in  forenoons  understand  how  there  might 
be  such  a  one) — altogether  irresistible.  It  seemed 
like  an  improvement  in  the  article.  No  first  fig,  in  the 
opening  of  a  new  box,  ever  seemed,  to  a  child,  sweeter 
than  all  that  are  gone  before,  than  the  smell  of  that  nine 
A.M.  to  my  sensitive  nostrils.  It  was  during  the  cool 
week  we  had,  in  the  closing  of  July — if  you  remember — 
or,  rather,  it  was  the  coming  round  of  the  South  wind 
again,  after  coolness  a  little  unseasonable,  and  with  fra- 


478  LETTERS     FROM     IDLEWILD. 

grance  and  softness  that  had  been,  meantime,  ripening 
like  wine.  Of  such  a  feast,  to  take  a  taste  of  half  an 
hour,  and  then  turn  away  to  an  easy  chair  and  books  ? 
To  save  appetite  for  an  evening,  with  such  a  morning 
spread  out  to  tempt  one  ?  Saddle  my  mare,  on  the  con 
trary  ! 

Forenoon  exercise  on  horseback — temptingly  delicious 
as  it  is  in  a  breezy  summer's  day — is  a  forbidden  fruit  to  in 
valids,  for  two  or  three  incidental  reasons.  First,  as  I  have 
already  explained,  it  exhausts  the  stock  of  elasticity  for  the 
twelve  waking  hours  of  which  it  is  the  beginning.  Second, 
it  irritates  (often  into  profuse  bleeding  from  the  mouth, 
in  my  case)  the  comparatively  empty  stomach,  which 
needs  the  cushioning  of  food  for  its  half-healed  membranes. 
And,  third,  it  renders  later  exercise  impossible — thus  de 
priving  the  night's  sleep  of  the  immediate  lull  which  fol 
lows  fresh  fatigue,  and  substituting  for  it  the  wakefulness 
of  exhaustion,  prolonged  through  a  long  day  into  ner 
vousness.  "The  doctor's  orders"  are  not  accompanied 
with  this  satisfactory  explanation,  usually  ;  but  it  is  for 
these  or  similar  reasons  that  the  docile  patient  takes  his 
ride  only  with  the  lengthening  shadows  of  the  afternoon. 

But  life — the  wine  of  the  life  of  this  world — is  in  the 
morning  air.  Breath  for  the  pores,  exhilaration  for  the 
blood,  newness  and  freshness  for  the  worn  senses  and 
fibres,  are  the  over-runnings  from  the  cups  of  the  ascending 


PLEASURE     OF     AN      ERRAND.  419 

dewdrops.     The  descending  dew  of  evening  may  be  purer, 
but  it  is  not  fragrant  yet  with  the  breath  of  the  flowers 
it  is  on  its  way  to.     The  earth-tried  and  recalled — the 
dews  laden  with  perfume  and  exhaling  reluctantly  through 
the  forenoon's  warmer  hours — are  the  tempters  for  senses 
still  mortal.     For  flesh-and-blood  consciousness  of  exist 
ence,  the  intoxication  is  in  the  just  full  glory  of  the  day. 
The  drought  had  stilled  Idlewild  brook,  and  the  part 
ing  steps  of  my  mare's  dainty  feet,   as  she  picked  her 
way  down  the  windings  of  the  precipitous  road,  were  not 
set  to  music  as  usual.      But  the  leaves  rustled  and  the 
birds  sang.     And  when  we  left  the  closed  gate  behind  us, 
and  galloped  off  upon  the  level  bank  of  the  Moodna,  it 
was  with  a  sense  of  health  that  had  a  one-horse  power — 
the  animal  at  the  end  of  my  spine,  and  subject  to  my 
volition,  being  as  much  a  part  of  me  as  the  smile  I  could 
bridle  on  my  lip — as  the  tear  subject  to  the  lashes  of  my 
eye.     God  has  thus,  in  the  horse,  given  us  limbs  we  can 
put  on  and  leave  off — lungs  we  can  borrow  for  more  speed 
— strength  we  can  incorporate  with  our  weakness.     JSTot 
to  have  a  horse  in  familiar  and  daily  use — to  the  degree 
which  embodies  the  generous  animal  and  his  powers  into 
your  consciousness  of  forces  and  faculties — is  to  be  less  of 
a  being  by  that  much. 

There  is  a  point,  in  the  pleasantest  ride,  when  one  feels 
that  an  errand  would  have   made  it  pleasanter.     The 


480  LETTERS      FROM      IDLEWILD. 

invalid,  particularly  is  apt  to  draw  rein  (without  an  ob 
ject  in  his  ride),  and  start  too  soon  on  his  return.  By  a 
caprice  of  irregular  spirits,  exercise  is  thus  shirked,  some 
times,  when  there  is  no  beginning  of  weariness  of  the 
body.  So  flourishing  a  town  as  Newburgh,  four  miles 
off,  and  to  which  there  are  four  different  and  pleasant 
roads  from  Idlewild,  is  quite  a  treasure  to  me  in  this  re 
spect.  It  is  hard  not  to  have  an  errand  there  ;  for,  fail 
ing  everything  else,  there  is  almost  the  certainty  of  a 
letter  at  the  Post-office — many  of  my  correspondents 
being  quite  oblivious  of  my  address  of  Moodna,  Orange 
Co.,  and  directing  (with  wonderful  faith  in  propinquity 
and  postmasters)  to  the  largest  place  they  can  think  of 
in  the  neighborhood. 

But,  upon  this  "  spree "  of  a  forenoon-full  of  out-o  f- 
doors,  I  gave  myself  a  special  errand  to  Newburgh  (to 
make  sure  of  getting  there,  though  I  should  go  round  by 
Mortonville,  the  wildest  and  longest  way),  and  as  the 
errand  in  question  reminds  me  of  an  an  appeal  I  have  long 
thought  of  making  to  manufacturers,  for  the  benefit  of 
a  certain  class  of  suffering  authors,  a  digression  to  it  will 
perhaps  be  excused  by  invalids — a  redeeming  feature  of 
utility  being  very  necessary,  occasionally,  to  make  the 
strong  and  hearty  feel  kindly  towards  our  sick-room  gossip. 

The  "improvement  of  the  age,"  in  which,  I  presume, 
no  one  can  take  a  share  who  has  any  feeling  for  grace  in 


PENS      AND      PENKNIVES.  481 

a  line  or  freedom  in  thumb  and  finger,  is  the,  steel  pen. 
An  invention  of  wooden  shoes,  of  the  same  size  for  all 
human  beings,  would  be  for  me  a  very  similar  economy 
and  convenience.  The  use  of  the  article  has  become  very 
general,  however — a  circumstance  which,  in  all  proba 
bility,  has  accidentally  taken  a  census  of  the  mechanical- 
fingered  and  angular-brained  of  our  highly  free-and-equal 
population.  There  is  a  remaining  class  to  whom  the  steel 
pen  is  an  inconvenience  of  the  most  positive  kind — poets 
and  writers  on  imaginative  or  delicate  subjects,  whose 
grace  and  ease  of  style  are  at  once  paralysed  by  a  nib  so 
unsusceptible  and  stiff,  and,  indeed,  at  whose  invitation  of 
ink,  with  such  misrepresenting  angularity  of  scratch,  no 
playful  or  tender  sentiment  will  pass  from  brain  to  finger. 
I  presume  it  has  always  been  true,  that,  if  it  were  not 
for  geese  and  the  more  pliable  medium  they  give  us, 
poetry  and  fancy  would  be  cut  off  from  communication 
with  the  world. 

But  goose-quills  (and  here  conies  the  tight  place) 
require  penknives  of  the  best  quality  ;  and  even  as  first- 
class  statesmen  and  patriots  have  died  out  with  the  uni 
versality  of  middling  politicians,  so,  first-rate  penknives 
have  disappeared  with  the  universality  of  tolerable  pens 
ready-made.  The  £>nc/v-ifying  movement  of  the  age — mak 
ing  all  men  and  things  of  a  size — leaves  no  eminences  of 
clay  (such  as  Henry  Clay)  standing  around  us  ;  and  with 
21 


482  LETTERS      FROM      IDLEWILD. 

steel  pens,  and  no  (i  Roger  sjs  lest  penknives,"  poets  will  soon 
be  "  as  like  as  bricks,"  if  heard  of  at  all. 

In  galloping  up  the  ascents  of  the  tangled  valley  of 
Ring's  Mills,  where  the  Moodna  ties  a  love-knot  of  scene 
ry  among  the  abrupt  hills  and  rocks  so  magnificently 
wooded — feeling  (horse  and  vall)  as  strong  and  swift  as 
was  any  man's  share — I  had  the  new  penknife  in  my 
mind,  which  was  the  morning's  errand  to  Xewburgh. 
The  old  one — a  cherished  double-blade  which  had  long 
bridged  over,  for  me,  the  uncertain  chasm  between  brain 
and  white  paper — had  been  called  upon  (like  the  Hon. 
Mrs.  Norton)  for  duties  a  little  beyond  the  strength  of 
its  fine  edge.  A  slate-pencil  had  been  sharpened  with  it. 
For  a  week  or  two  I  had  tried  honeing  and  stropping, 
and  struggled  to  believe  in  the  renewableness  of  temper 
so  unyielding  hitherto.  But  the  nibs  that  were  to  be 
re-pointed  were  only  crushed.  The  readers  of  the  Home 
Journal  will  remember  the  articles  in  which  the  convey 
ance  of  my  meaning  was  painfully  clumsy  and  imperfect. 
Nobody  could  write  with  such  a  penknife. 

Brown's,  in  ISTewburgh,  is  a  hardware  store  worthy  of 
Broadway — a  museum  of  usefulnesses  and  positivities, 
which,  I  have  found  it  a  refreshing  change  from  modern 
poetry  to  make  a  lounge  of — and  I  was  soon,  by  permis 
sion,  behind  his  counter,  lost  in  an  inviting  wilderness  of 
little  brown  bundles,  each  with  its  tempting  specimen 


"ROGERS'S    BEST."  483 

outside  under  the  twine.  Oh,  the  pleasure  of  opening  one 
of  each,  trying  its  edge  upon  the  round  of  the  hand,  and 
imagining  the  adjectives  and  pronouns,  the  similitudes  and 
sentiments,  for  the  passage  of  which  it  could  make  a 
quill  once  more  inviting  to  the  capricious  brain  ! 

But  I  was  disappointed.  Calling  for  a  quill,  to  make 
a  final  experiment  before  choosing  (not  compelled,  fortu 
nately,  to  take  it  for  better  or  worse  without  trial), 
I  found  the  edges  of  those  polished  and  showy  look 
ing  things  untrue.  The  tempers  had  not  been  prepared 
for  such  work.  Pen-making  being  no  longer  among  the 
duties  in  a  knife's  destiny,  owing  to  the  common  use 
of  steel-pens,  the  blade  is  now  only  fitted  to  cut  threads 
and  to  clean  finger-nails. 

I  called  on  my  friend  Mr.  Brown,  and  explained  my 
difficulty. 

"  Oh,  my  dear  sir,"  said  he,  looking  unencouragingly 
at  the  tall  shelves  with  his  assorted  wilderness  of  cutlery, 
"  penknives  are  not  what  they  used  to  be.  You'll  not  find 
one,  I  am  afraid,  in  those  new  parcels.  But"  (he  conti 
nued,  putting  his  hand  in  his  waistcoat  pocket  and  pulling 
out  a  plain  old  article,  such  as  we  used  to  see  in  the  days 
of  Tom  Hood  and  Elia),  "here  is  one  that  I  have  car 
ried  for  years  in  my  pocket — a  Rogers's  best — and  I  will 
make  you  a  present  of  it." 

It  was  a  flower  flung  on  the  ebbing  current  of  my 


484  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE WILD. 

forenoon  !  (for,  by  this  time,  and,  with  my  strength  tied  by 
the  bridle  to  the  post  outside,  I  was  beginning  to  exhaust 
and  be  dispirited),  and  I  mentally  thanked  Mr.  Brown 
for  a  kindness  that  chanced  to  be  as  timely  as  it  was 
frank  and  flattering.  I  needed  both  the  knife  and  the 
tender  thought. 

Of  all  the  kinds  of  sadness  which  an  invalid  knows  (to 
resume  our  Idlewild  gossip),  the  most  leaden  and  pro 
strating  is  that  of  fatigue  after  a  forbidden  pleasure. 
One  becomes,  in  a  long  illness,  a  luxuriast  in  sadness — 
discriminating  between  its  moods,  as  a  mourner  between 
plaintiveness  in  music.  The  brain — as  I  have  elsewhere 
said — has  its  lift  and  scope,  strangely  independent,  some 
times,  of  the  weaknesses  of  the  body.  "  I  have  often 
observed  myself  with  attention,"  says  the  author  of  the 
"  Dietetics  of  the  Soul,"  "  and  found  that  even  when 
the  head  is  most  bewildered,  thought  remains  pure  and 
free,  like  some  force  which  has  retired  unscathed  to  its 
stronghold  before  the  enemy."  But — (for  our  dignity  as 
immortal  spirits,  let  it  make  us  grateful  to  remember) — 
there  is  no  escape  from  the  depression  of  self-reproach. 
~Not  even  the  oblivion  of  a  reverie  will  beguile  fatigue 
that  was  imprudent  and  needless. 

Of  my  nervous  and  weary  afternoon,  dear  brother 
invalid — of  the  sunset  hour  and  twilight,  lost  because 
unappreciable  after  the  forenoon  surfeit  and  exhaustion — 


THE     MORAL.  485 

I  need  give  you  only  the  moral.  Suffering,  which  makes 
us  dwell  upon  our  failure  in  constancy  and  resolution,  is 
very  different  from  the  suffering  which  elevates  us — ele 
vates  us,  because,  while  it  brings  us  nearer  to  what  is  nobler 
and  purer,  it  seems  to  be  only  detaching  us  from  the 
coarser  life  which  prevented  our  being  part  of  it.  I 
should  like  to  feel  that  my  extravagance  in  a  truant 
forenoon — which  gave  me  a  night  of  illness,  as  well  as  a 
day-penance  of  irredeemable  depression — may  have  made 
palatable,  in  the  gossip  which  confesses  it,  a  lesson  of 
prudence  for  some  fellow-sinner  of  an  invalid. 


486  LETTERS      FROM      IDLEWILD. 


LETTER  LXVII. 

Sufferers  from  Drought— Our  Hyla  or  Tres-toad— Cure  of  Jaundice— Abuses  by 
Telegraph-menders,  &c.,  &c. 

September  16, ISM. 

THE  lungs  of  ten  thousand  trees,  invalids  every  one, 
are  suffering  from  the  drought,  in  the  woods  of  Idle  wild 
We  are  a  pulmonary  wilderness — they  and  I.  The 
yellow  pine  is  the  single  exception — healthier  and  brighter 
than  I  have  ever  before  known  it,  doubtless  from  the 
more  arid  and  Southern  atmosphere  which  has  taken 
possession  of  our  Northern  latitude.  (So  will  there  be 
no  plague  without  some  to  thrive  better  for  it  !)  Our 
willows  look  "  in  the  last  stages,"  however.  Elms  are  of 
a  reconciled  yellow,  waiting  for  autumn.  Oaks  and 
chestnuts  have  dropped  their  superfluous  leaves  from  the 
ends  of  branches  too  luxuriant  (laid  aside  their  dissipa 
tions,  as  it  were),  and  hold  on  for  the  deferred  rains  with 
a  confidence  in  re-invigoration  yet  possible.  The  evening 
wind  walks  through  our  hospital  with  a  fallen-leaf 
cadence  in  its  sigh — the  medicine  of  its  dews  of  small 
avail. 


''A     NASTY      TREE-TOAD."  481 

But  we  have  one  apparent  sufferer  by  the  excessive 
drought,  who  has  been  the  object  of  some  superstitious 
tenderness  at  Idlewild — his  fastidious  preference  as  to  a 
room  in  which  to  be  sick,  and  his  obstinacy  as  to  putting 
us  to  inconvenience,  having  engendered  the  idea  that  it 
was  a  human  soul  in  the  habit  of  having  his  own  way, 
though  at  present,  probably,  in  a  very  purgatorial  stage 
of  downward  transmigration.  This,  our  in-door  guest  by 
his  own  choice  and  invitation,  is  known  in  Natural  History 
as  a  Hyla,  and  in  common  mention  as  "  a  nasty  tree-toad." 
And  that  opprobrious  adjective  is  so  invariably  prefixed, 
by  all  who  see  and  name  him,  as  to  seem  a  penal  retribu 
tion  of  Providence  for  sins  in  another  existence  ;  though 
as  we  have  not  joined  in  thus  stigmatizing  the  outcast, 
but  as,  on  the  contrary,  our  family  sympathies  have  con 
verted  him  into  an  object  of  respectful  interest  and 
attention,  it  looks  a  little  as  if  purgatory  may  not  be 
altogether  without  its  chances  of  pity. 

The  intelligence  manifested  by  this  little  reptile  may  be 
well  worth  recording.  His  first  appearance  was  a  jump 
that  he  made  from  the  long  neck  of  a  goblet  of  earthern 
ware,  used  to  keep  drinking-water  cool  through  the  night, 
and  which  stood  upon  a  wash-stand  in  a  dressing-room. 
With  the  upset  of  his  hiding-place,  to  turn  out  a  tumbler 
of  water,  he  sprang  to  the  wall,  clinging  to  it  by  the 
mucous  tubercle  on  the  toe  which  forms  his  peculiarity. 


LETTERS      FROM      IDLEWILD. 

The  servants  were  summoned,  and  he  was  caught  and 
thrown  out  of  the  window — finding  his  way  in  again, 
however,  before  morning,  and  again  and  again  ejected  and 
returning — four  times— till  at  last  he  was  taken  to  the 
window  at  the  rear  of  the  house,  and  pitched  roughly 
upon  the  gravelled  area  at  the  kitchen  door.  My  wife, 
whose  visitor  he  was,  presumed  this  to  be  the  last  of  him; 
but,  strangely  enough,  his  protuberant  eyes  looked  at  her 
from  the  neck  of  the  water-jar,  as  usual,  the  next  morn 
ing  ;  he  having  found  his  way  around  the  house,  passing 
a  dozen  windows  within  which  water  was  equally  accessi 
ble,  entering  between  the  slats  of  a  closed  blind,  and 

taking  possession  once  more  of  that  particular  vessel 

certainly  a  less  convenient  one  (with  its  narrow  neck 
through  which  he  could  hardly  squeeze  himself)  than 
the  bath-tub  and  water-pitcher  near  by. 

Curiosity  was,  by  this  time,  grown  thoughtful,  however. 
We  all  remembered  having  heard,  as  long  as  we  had  lived 
at  Idlewild,  the  gurgle  of  a  tree-toad's  song,  from  the  side 
of  the  house  upon  which  the  window  of  that  dressing-room 
opens.  His  voice,  and  a  night-owl's,  apparently  from  the 
same  tree  overhanging  the  precipice,  were  the  music 
familiar  to  all  who  walked  at  late  hours  under  our  roof. 
He  was  an  out-door  one  of  us — driven  to  take  shelter 

within,  by  the  unseasonable  weather  and  sickness it  was 

now  acknowledged,  by  all,  and  with  regret  at  the  tardi- 


A     GERMAN      REMEDY.  489 

ness  of  the  recognition.  But,  from  that  time  he  has 
been  tenderly  treated.  My  wife  cares  for  Hyla  as  others 
care  for  nightingales  and  goldfinches.  He  jumps  to  the 
window-ledge  or  to  the  wall,  apparently  for  air  and 
exercise,  once  a  day — the  maid,  meantime,  changing  the 
water,  into  which  he  returns,  to  sit  hydropathically 
immersed.  His  bead-like  eyes  twinkle,  and  his  curtain- 
like  throat  swells  and  throbs  with  his  breathings,  when 
he  is  approached,  but  he  does  not'  stir.  He  believes  in 
us — a  faith  in  those  who  once  misunderstood  him  which 
has  its  lesson  of  humility.  For  six  weeks  he  has  now 
been  our  inmate. 

In  these  days,  when  the  "  places  that  know  us  "  seem 
struggling  to  reveal  that  they  know  spirits  also,  we  look 
inquiringly  upon  all  that  announces  a  new  presence.  Of 
this  trusting  tree-toad's  errand  and  quality  my  uncer 
tainty  is  at  least  respectful. 

****** 

I  do  not  know  whether,  among  our  invalid  public 
of  readers,  there  are  any  whose  complaint  is  the  jaundice  ; 
but  the  German  cure  for  it — sudden  stir  of  the  bile  by 
an  arousal  of  the  indignation* — is  to  be  found  in  the 


*  My  brother,  the  nervous  and  delicately  organized  Editor  of  the  Musical 
World,  called  in  a  physician  when  prostrated  with  the  jaundice  in  Leipsic, 
Germany.  The  Doctor  left,  promising  to  send  in  his  prescription.  Meantim" 
an  old  woman  entered,  who  accused  my  brother  of  stealing,  spat  in  his  face 

21* 


490        LETTERS   FROM   IDLE  WILD. 

highways  about  Idlewilcl,  its  efficacy  likely  to  be  tried 
upon  you,  indeed,  let  your  complaint  be  what  it  will.  I 
speak  of  a  one-horse  wagon,  with  two  men  and  an  axe 
and  a  ladder— telegraph-menders  who  pass  to  and  fro, 
periodically,  and  who  feel  at  liberty  to  cut  down,  without 
leave  or  consultation,  any  beautiful  tree  upon  the  road 
side,  the  waving  of  whose  branches  may  interfere  with 
the  wires.  Lined  as  our  Highland  roads  are  with  bird- 
planted  cedars,  and  the  telegraph  track  being  compelled 
by  law  to  follow  the  highway,  here  is  a  plump  conflict 
between  utility  and  beauty.  I  saw  two  cedars  cut 
down  yesterday,  and  their  spires  of  luxuriant  foliage 
thrown  into  the  ditch  like  weeds  or  thistles,  and  twenty 
years  would  not  restore  the  lovely  like  of  them  to  the 
border  of  my  daily  ride.  What  news  their  delicate 
branch-tips  may  have  tampered  with,  or  what  friend's 
lightning-sped  message,  sad  or  joyous,  was  likely  to  be 
modified  or  hindered  by  the  leaving  our  highway  shaded 
and  beautiful,  of  course  was  not  taken  into  immediate 
consideration.  A  jaundice  would  have  time  enough  to 
be  cured,  before  most  human  tempers  would  remember 
friends  or  news  enough  to  neutralize  such  an  irritant  of 
the  bile.  But  (dear  Directors  and  Companies!;  is  there 
no  way  to  give  your  wires  room  enough,  without  cutting 

and  ran  out  of  the  room !  This  was  the  medicine— immediately  effectual— for 
with  the  vigorous  start  of  the  bile  commenced  a  rapid  recovery. 


TREES      VS.      TELEGRAPHS.  491 

a  track  for  them  through  the  shade-trees  under  which 
beggar  and  invalid,  traveller  and  laboring  man,  bless  God 
for  common  and  free  shelter  from  the  sun  ?  A  tree  in 
a  field  is  one  man's.  A  tree  in  the  road  is  the  people's — 
sacred  to  the  wayfarer  and  the  weary.  Would  it  not  be 
better — (greatly  lessening  the  distance,  at  the  same  time) 
— to  change  the  law  restricting  the  telegraph  to  the 
highways,  and  ran  them,  in  a  bee-line,  across  fields,  from 
city  to  city  ?  The  question  is  an  open  one,  at  least  ;  and 
let  us  hope  to  find,  by  discussing  it,  that  our  country  can 
be  "  fast/'  and  yet  have  the  beauty  and  comfort  for  the 
many — in  such  matters,  for  instance,  as  the  only  trees 
whose  shade  is  without  money  and  without  price — kindly 
and  thoughtfully  respected. 


492  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE WILD. 


LETTER    LXYIIL 

Difficulty  of  knowing  what  cures  Us— Od-ic  Influence— Letter  from  an  Artist, 
introducing  and  describing  an  Od-omatrician— His  Letter— The  Experiment 
—Table-movings,  &c.,  &c. 

September  23,  1854. 

OUR  sick  brother  Summer  is  "  picking  up  again.'7  The 
two  months'  drought  has  been,  broken  at  last  by  rains  ; 
and,  though  the  hectic  upon  the  hills  still  flushes  in  the 
cleared  air  (their  slopes  looking  like  strata  of  fossil  rain 
bows,  with  the  prematurely  discolored  leaves)  the  washed 
evergreens  look  bright  and  the  grass-tips  are  lifting  once 
more  green  and  beautiful  in  the  pastures.  Possibly  to 
give  me  the  advantage  of  a  sympathy  with  the  equinox, 
my  doctor  has  followed  Nature's  treatment  of  the  sick 
Summer  ;  and,  by  a  sudden  change  to  sustained  and 
powerful  tonics,  has  brightened  me  into  such  a  promise  of 
my  regular  October,  that,  with  casual  observers,  it 
passes  for  my  time  of  year — a  dropped  leaf  here  and 
there,  but  not  more  sad  than  seasonable.  We  shall  see 
how  we  stand  the  letting  down  of  the  Indian  Summer  ; 
but,  if  there  is  no  pull  upon  our  juices  by  a  second 


OD-IC      INFLUENCE.  493 

drought,  and  an  autumn  of  reluctant  invigoration, 
Summer  and  I  may  consider  our  chasm  bridged  over. 

One  of  the  puzzles  of  illness,  however,  is,  when  getting 
better,  to  know  what  has  cured  us.  One  secretly  tries  a 
thing  or  two  that  has  been  recommended  by  kind  friends, 
not  telling  the  doctor,  perhaps,  till  he  comes  to  rejoice 
in  the  success  of  his  prescription.  I  fear  that  Homoe 
opathy  and  my  friend  Gray  must  divide  the  agency  of  my 
improval  with  a  certain  mysterious  power  called  OD-IC 
INFLUENCE,  exercised  upon  me  through  four  white-wood 
wands  which  I  received  from  a  stranger,  a  week  or  two 
since,  with  directions  as  to  the  employment  of  a  power 
with  which  he  had  impregnated  them  for  my  cure.  But, 
as  all  I  know  of  the  matter  is  explainable  on  paper,  and 
as  the  directions  are  so  full  and  satisfactory  as  to  be 
easily  followed  by  those  who  wish,  it  is  a  fair  contribu 
tion  to  the  Invalid  treasury  to  make  it  public— premature 
though,  perhaps,  it  may  somewhat  be,  as  a  mist  from  the 
spirit-world  whose  once  remote  atmosphere  seems  draw 
ing  closer  around  us. 

But,  to  the  story. 

Hand-writings  have  their  physiognomy  ;  and,  on  open 
ing  a  thick  package  among  my  letters  by  the  day's  mail, 
and  laying  aside  an  outer  letter  and  a  pierced  card 
through  which  were 'run  four  slender  and  dagger-shaped 
sticks,  of  sandal-wood  color,  and  of  the  length  from  a 


494        LETTERS   FROM   IDLE  WILD. 

lady's  bracelet  to  her  wedding  ring,  I  was  startled  by  the 
aspect  of  a  manuscript  in  a  strange,  old-fashioned  hand — 
four  pages  closely  written,  with  upright  and  angular 
letters,  and  interspersed  with  curious  diagrams  and  large 
black  numbers.  It  was  dated  at  a  small  country  town 
of  which  I  know  something  by  hearsay,  and  signed  with 
the  writer's  name — and,  by  retaining  only  the  date  and 
the  name,  I  shall  give  all  that  those  interested  will  need 
for  experiment,  while  at  the  same  time,  I  secure  the 
privacy  intended  in  the  communication. 

It  will  be  as  well  to  precede  the  manuscript  with  part 
of  the  introductory  letter  which  accompanied  it,  and 
which  gives  some  particulars  of  the  habits  and  character 
of  my  mysterious  well-wisher.  The  introducer  is  an 
artist,  well  known  for  his  talents,  whom.  I  once  had  the 
pleasure  of  meeting,  and  who  is  passing  his  professional 
summer  in  the  romantic  and  secluded  neighborhood  of 
the  odimetrician's  residence,  the  old  gentleman  being  a 
distant  connection  of  his  family.  After,  an  explanation 
as  to  the  inclosed  manuscript,  my  kind  friend  goes  on  to 
say  : — 

*    *    "He  (Mr. )  is  now  sixty-six  years  of  ago.    He  is 

independent  in  his  means,  has  never  married,  and  has  mingled 
little  with  the  world.  For  the  last  forty  years  he  has  slept  but 
three  or  four  hours  out  of  the  twenty-four.  '  He  says  he  began  the 
practice  of  sitting  up  late  as  a  cure  for  suffusion  of  blood  to  the 


AN     0  D  I  M  E  T  R  I  C  I  A  N  .  495 

eyes,  and  has  kept  it  up  ever  since.  He  rises  at  six,  takes  a  walk 
of  half  an  hour  up  and  down  a  tracked  path  behind  his  house,  of 
which  the  grounds  are  extensive,  then  eats  a  breakfast  which  is 
invariably  of  the  same  food  and  quantity — a  small  plate  of 
minced  meat,  and  a  slice  and  a  half  of  toast  covered  with  pepper 
and  lumps  of  butter.  He  remains  in  his  study  till  a  little  before 
twelve,  takes  another  walk,  dines  on  an  exact  repetition  of  his 
breakfast,  remains  in  his  study  till  five,  and  then  takes  another 
walk  on  the  beaten  path.  His  supper  is  varied  by  the  substitu 
tion  of  shad  and  potato  for  the  minced  meat.  Coffee  he  drinks 
morning  and  evening.  H  e  has  made  this  his  diet  for  forty  years 
With  another  walk  after  his  supper  he  goes  to  his  study,  where 
he  reads  and  tries  his  od-imetric  experiments  till  three  or  four 
in  the  morning. 

«  Mr. is  very  tall  and  of  wonderful  vigor  and  youthful- 
ness  of  frame  and  feeling,  though  his  hair  is  as  white  as  snow. 
He  attributes  his  strength  to  his  absolutely  regular  habits,  for, 
when  young,  he  was  thought  by  his  father  (who  was  a  physician) 
to  be  dying  of  consumption.  He  sees  no  company,  except  myself, 
and  as  I  sit  at  table  with  him,  and  listen  to  his  conversation, 
exceedingly  rich,  varied  and  extraordinary  as  it  is,  I  mourn  that 
Dickens  is  not  here  to  take  his  picture  for  the  world.  He  is  a 
rare  specimen  of  the  gentleman  of  the  old  school  in  his  manners, 
very  benevolent  to  the  poor,  kind-hearted  and  generous  in  all  his 
impulses.  I  never  expect  to  look  upon  his  like  again.  By  the 
neighbors,  who  are  rather  superstitious  about  him,  he  is  consi 
dered  deranged  on  religious  and  scientific  subjects,  and  it  is  said, 
that  he  has  for  years  taken  opium,  though  this  I  think  doubtful. 

"  The  chance  malformation  of  a  double  thumb  on  his  right 
hand,  in  the  form  of  a  cross,  is  considered  by  Mr. as  the 


496        LETTERS   FROM   IDLE  WILD. 

mark  of  his  high  calling  as  a  prophet.  He  believes  himself  the 
milennial  successor  of  Isaiah,  but  says  that  England  is  the  chosen 
milennial  kingdom.  He  has  written  pamphlets  in  explanation  of 
the  prophecies,  has  had  them  printed,  and  is  preparing  another. 
If  I  had  time  I  would  tell  you  of  his  l  grand  experiments  '  as  he 
terms  them  (and  grand  they  certainly  are),  accounts  of  which  are 
to  appear  in  his  work.  I  wish  you  could  see  them.  I  have  sat  up 
with  him  many  a  night,  seeing  him  perform  his  '  enchantments,' 
as  he  also  sometimes  names  them,  and  really  fearful  they  were  to 
behold.  The  house  is  an  old  one,  walls  gloomy  and  dark,  and 
there  he  would  sit,  dressed  in  a  most  unique  as  well  as  antique 
costume,  hair  white  as  snow,  three  or  four  lights  shedding  a  dim 
glare  around  the  apartment,  and  he,  with  his  pendules,  bones  and 
machineries,  going  through  a  series  of  experiments  as  visionary  as 
the  dreamings  of  an  eater  of  '  hasheesh.' 

"  Among  his  opinions,  he  says  ninety  out  of  every  one  hundred 
are  possessed  with  a  devil.  He  has  the  power  of  dispossessing, 
and  dispossessed  me,  which  he  told  me  was  the  most  serious  event 
of  my  whole  life.  He  considers  cotton  and  women  diabolic 
mediums,  those  who  wear  cotton  being  more  apt  to  do  wrong 
than  those  who  wear  linen,  the  Bible  declaring  that  '  linen  is  the 
righteousness  of  the  saints.'  He  writes  poetry,  and  is  certainly, 
aside  from  his  idiosyncrasies,  a  philosopher  and  a  highly  culti 
vated  and  polished  gentleman.  He  is  also  a  musical  composer. 
He  sometimes  walks  around  the  house  singing  all  night.  His 
voice  is  admirable  and  of  great  strength.  I  have  listened  many 
an  hour  in  wonder  to  hear  the  beauty  with  which  he  sings  Eng 
lish  songs,  as  well  as  sacred  music,  of  which  he  is  very  fond. 

'•  In  a  letter  to  him,  after  seeing  by  the  papers  that  you 
were  so  ill,  I  asked  him  to  send  an  od-ic  to  your  lungs,  distance 


AN      ODIMETRIC      LETTER.  497 

being  of  no  consequence,  in  his  theory.  The  result  was  the  letter 
which  I  inclose.  He  wrote  it  with  a  sincere  belief  that  it  was  for 
your-  recovery.  He  afterwards  proposed  to  me  that  he  should  pay 
all  expenses,  and  that  we  should  go  to  Idlewild,  to  see  you  and 
show  you  how  to  use  the  wands,  &c.  His  regard  for  you  is  very 
great."  ****** 

And  by  this  artistic  description  of  the  odimetrician  by 
our  artist  friend,  the  reader  is  prepared  for  the  odimetric 
letter  itself,  which  follows  verbally  as  written  :— 


-,  August  14, 1854. 


"  gIR  :_i  ghall  leave  it  to  my  friend,  well-known  as  a  poet, 
artist,  and  contributor  to  American  literature,  and  who,  I  believe, 
is  slightly  acquainted  with  you,  to  forward  this  communication, 
with  such  introductory  notes  as  may  be  proper.  I  am  a  subscriber 
to  the  Home  Journal,  and  have  been  much  entertained  by  the 
descriptions  of  your  proceedings  at  Idlewild,  and  of  the  surround 
ings  ;  and  have  felt  much  sympathy  in  reading  the  occasional 
notices  of  your  complaint.  I  had  hoped  till  latterly,  that  you 
were  recovering,  and  that  the  world  would  long  have  the  benefit 
of  the  efforts  of  your  brilliant  pen.  Two  days  since,  I  received  a 
letter  from  Mr.  Lawrence,  in  which  he  says  : — '  I  see  Willis  is 
failing,  and  am  very  sorry.  Please  throw  an  odic  into  his  lungs, 
and  see  if  you  cannot  save  him."  This  I  should  by  no  means  feel 
at  liberty  to  do,  without  your  knowledge  and  consent ;  although, 
as  Mr.  —  —  well  knows,  the  distance  would  interpose  no  obstacle. 
But  to  explain  : — 

"  I  have  for  some  time  been  engaged  in  a  course  of  experiments 
on  Reichenbach's  OD-FOKCE,  and  appear  to  have  made  some  valu 
able  discoveries  ;  among  which  is  this  :— That  every  different  class 


498  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE  WILD. 

of  substances  has  an  ODIC  peculiar  to  itself ;  that  these  ODICS  can 
be  detached  and  transmitted  to  a  distance  with  the  speed  of  the 
telegraph,  and  fixed  permanently  in  other  bodies,  or  any  part  of 
them,  in  living  bodies,  or  upon  any  organ,  &c. ;  and  that  the 
odics  of  medicinal  substances  produce  effects  similar  to  those  of 
the  substances  from  which  they  are  derived,  exhibited  in  the  usual 
methods,  but  more  ethereal.  The  Eclectic  School  of  Medicine  in 
this  country,  of  which  Dr.  Buchanan,  the  discoverer  of  psychome- 
try,  is  perhaps  regarded  as  the  chief,  insists  much,  of  late,  upon 
the  fact  that  an  article  of  medicine,  carried  about  the  person,  even 
in  a  glass  vial  hermetically  sealed,  produces  on  many  sensitives, 
effects  similar  to  those  of  the  medicine,  &c.  These  effects  are  not 
improbably  caused  by  CD-FORCE,  for  there  is  no  other  element  or 
principle,  at  present  known,  peculiar  to  any  article  of  medicine, 
that  could  permeate  the  glass,  &c.  But  this  method  of  applying 
the  OD-FORCE  must  be  very  unequal  and  uncertain.  A  method 
which  I  propose,  and  which  I  will  directly  describe,  has  the 
advantages,  that  an  accurately  measured  quantity  can  be  thrown 
permanently  upon  any  organ  or  part  of  the  system  which  may  be 
affected,  may  be  dispersed,  wholly  or  in  part,  renewed,  &c.,  at 
will.  Accompanying  this,  you  will  receive  four  WAXDS,  which 
are  supposed  to  possess  very  considerable  odimetric  virtues,  which 
I  will  proceed  to  specify ;  but  first,  as  to  the  method  of  using  the 
wands. 

"  It  will  be  necessary,  in  the  first  place,  to  find  one  in  whose 
hand  a  pendule  will  traverse  spontaneously.  A  pendule  is  a  gold 
ring  or  other  light  weight,  suspended  by  a  thread  five  or  six 
inches  long,  and  held  in  the  right  hand,  over  a  motor.  A  slip  of 
any  silk  stuff,  or  small  piece  of  cotton  or  linen  cloth,  is  a  good 
motor.  When  a  pendule  is  held  (as  above)  over  one  of  these,  the 


CURIOUS      EXPERIMENT.  499 

mind  being  kept  perfectly  passive  (if  in  the  right  hand)  the  pen- 
dule  in  a  few  seconds  acquires  a  spontaneous  movement :  if  over 
silk,  rotary  ;  if  over  cotton,  oscillating  ;  if  over  linen,  rotary. 
Such  an  one  being  found,  let  him,  with  one  of  the  wands  in  his 
right  hand,  point,  with  the  lesser  extremity,  to  the  motor  or  basis, 
and  pronounce  mentally,  with  conscious  purpose,  this  formula  : — 

*  LET  VIRTUE    GO   FORTH,  DEGREES,  INTO  THE  BASIS  " — BlOVing 

the  wand  slightly,  at  the  close,  towards  the  basis.  If  the  blank 
be  filled  by  the  word  seven,  and  if  virtue  have  gone  forth,  the 
pendule  will  now  refuse  to  move,  the  native  and  artificial  odics 
being  exactly  balanced.  Linen  free  from  cotton,  ten  degrees. 
If  a  number  greater  than  seven  and  less  than  ninety,  be  mention 
ed,  the  pendule  will  acquire  a  new  movement.  The  wands,  which 
I  will  designate,  according  to  the  marks,  by  the  numbers  one,  two, 
three,  four,  will  give,  respectively,  these  movements.  [Here 
follow  diagrams  which  we  cannot  give  in  print,  representing  the 
movements.] 

"  To  remove  the  odic,  let  the  operator  hold  the  wand  by  the 
lesser  extremity,  and  pointing  as  before,  pronounce  this  formula  : 

'  Let degrees  of  the  artificial  odio  be  entirely  dispersed  ;'  or, 

« let  the  artificial  odic,7  &c.  The  basis  or  motor  should  thus  be 
restored  partially  or  wholly  to  its  normal  condition.  Should  this 
succeed,  the  operator  can  throw  an  odic  into  the  person  of  another, 
or  upon  any  organ,  &c.  The  particular  form  of  words  is  not 
essential,  only  a  method  is  required  to  concentrate  the  animus, 
which  is  the  moving  force  that — so  to  speak — hoists  the  gate,  or 
throws  on  the  steam,  &c.  The  pendule  arid  wand  would,  doubt 
less,  operate  in  the  hands  of  many  (where  they  will  not)  were  it 
not  for  their  surroundings.  A  new  garment  of  any  mixed  fabric, 
snuff  or  tobacco  about  the  person,  &c.,  will  commonly  prevent. 


500  LETTERS      FROM      IDLEWILD. 

The  presence  of  others  who  are  incredulous  or  unfriendly,  pro 
duces  much  the  same  effect  as  in  mesmeric  experiments. 

"Of  the  wands,  number  one  is  designed  to  operate  directly 
upon  your  disease,  the  odic  to  be  thrown  in  upon  your  lungs. 
Holding  the  wand  as  first  above,  and  pointing  towards  your 
chest,  let  the  operator  say.  "  Let  virtue  go  forth  into  the  lungs  of 
Mr.  Willis  -  -  degrees."  It  appears  that  twenty-five  degrees 
would  be  a  proper  dose,  though  it  might  be  well  to  begin  with  a 
less  number.  I  have  had  no  opportunity  to  try  this  orac  upon 
one  in  your  complaint,  but  have  thrown  it  in  upon  my  own  lungs, 
when  I  had  a  cold,  with  excellent  effect.  Number  two  will  throw 
an  odic  of  hyoscyamus,  designed  to  abate  your  cough.  I  think 
you  mentioned  that  your  cough  was  much  worse  at  night.  If  so, 
it  might  be  best  to  disperse  this  odic  for  the  day,  and  to  employ 
it  only  at  night.  The  two  can  be  employed  together — twenty- 
three  degrees  being  a  proper  dose  of  this. 

"  Number  three.  Many  persons  believe  that,  to  a  certain  extent, 
and  in  a  certain  manner,  the  consumption  is  contagious.  The 
odic  of  this  wand  is  designed  to  prevent  the  effect  of  this  conta 
gion.  There  is  a  family  in  this  region,  the  father  of  which,  and 
one  sister,  have  died  of  consumption,  and  another  sister  is  sick. 
I  threw  this  odic,  at  a  distance  of  some  dozen  miles,  into  the 
lungs  of  the  mother  and  two  well  sisters,  and  into  those  of  a  bro 
ther,  last  November.  Another  sister,  subsequently.  The  effect 
appears  to  have  been  admirable.  The  brother's  lungs  were  very 
considerably  affected  for  a  long  time  after  the  first  sister's  death. 
But  now,  though  this  sister  has  been  sick  more  than  a  year,  his 
lungs  are  affected  very  little— none  in  the  ordinary  sense  ;  he  is 
in  good  health,  and  his  mother  and  sisters  continue  well,  includ 
ing  one  who  has  been  constantly  with  the  invalid.  Of  her— the 


EFFICACY      OF      THE      ODICS.  501 

sick  one — if  space  permitted,  I  could  tell  some  remarkable  parti 
culars,  tending  to  prove  the  efficiency  of  these  applications.  Suf 
fice  it  to  say,  she  has  continued  much  longer  than  was  expected, 
and  is  still  surprisingly  comfortable. 

"  Number  four  will  dispense  an  omc  that  I  have  very  consider 
able  reason  for  supposing  will  be  more  efficacious  in  the  treatment 
of  your  complaint  than  number  one,  but  I  have  had  no  oppor 
tunity  of  making  trial  of  it.  The  proper  dose  of  this  is  also 
twenty-five  degrees.  That  of  number  three,  for  a  stout  Irish  girl, 
eighty-three  degrees — for  a  lady  of  more  delicate  organization, 
fifty-three — for  a  little  child,  twenty-four.  It  will  be  understood 
that  all  the  ODICS  are  to  be  applied  to  the  lungs.  The  wands  will 
operate  as  far  as  the  limits  of  an  apartment,  or,  in  the  open  air, 
to  a  distance  of  ten  feet.  They  will  throw  ninety  degrees  of  ODIC 
at  once,  or  any  less  number,  and  the  process  may  be  repeated  at 
will.  They  will  retain  their  efficacy  for  one  year,  or  till  August 
14,  1855,  when  it  will  suddenly  cease.  Number  four  can  be 
employed  wi  th  number  two,  but  not  with  number  one. 

"  It  has  given  me  pleasure,  sir,  to  prepare  the  wands,  and  to 
write  this  hurried  and  unmethodical  letter,  prompted  as  I  have 

been  by  Mr.  -,  and  hoping  I  might  do  some  good  ;  but 

I  shall  neither  be  surprised  nor  disappointed,  if  you  should  not  deem 
it  prudent  or  expedient  to  employ  applications  so  little  known. 
Should  you  conclude  to  make  use  of  them,  I  should  be  gratified 
to  hear  from  you,  but  not  unless  you  can  write  without  the  least 
inconvenience,  for  I  believe  all  over-exertion  in  your  complaint' 
is  very  detrimental.  With  the  best  wishes  for  your  welfare  and 
recovery,  I  am,  very  respectfully 


502  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE WILD. 

It  was   a  rainy  afternoon  ;    and,   of  the  five  or  six 
guests  who  chanced  to  be  prisoned  in-doors,  at  Idlewild, 
with  the  leisure  for  an  experiment  on  their  hands,  the 
character  was  varied  enough  to  give  us  an  unusual  chance 
of  finding   a   good    "medium."     A  Judge    of  the  City 
Bench,  two  lady  leaders  of  society  (one  from  gay  and 
inconsequent  New  York,  and  one  from  ethical  and  abstract 
Boston),  a  young  lady  just  returned  from  Europe,  a  sub 
stantial  merchant,  and  a  successful  author,  were  of  the 
circle  gathered  around  the  od-ic  wands  for  an  experiment 
— and  the  last-mentioned  (Bayard  Taylor)  was  found  to 
be  the  one  in  whose  force  of  will  best  resided  the  power. 
The  lady's  gold  ring  we  had  borrowed,  and,  suspended  to 
his  well-steadied  and  motionless  finger,  by  a  silken  thread, 
moved  in  absolute  obedience — circling  from  right  to  left, 
or  from  left  to  right,  backwards  or  forwards,  or  from  side 
to  side,  stopping  still  or  resuming  motion,  as  the  spec 
tators  requested,  and  as  he  accordingly  willed.    [Whether 
the  same  gold  could  be  willed  out  of  one  pocket  into 
another,  was  the  naturally-suggested  thought— but  that 
degree  of  od-icity  is  probably  millennial.] 

Having  thus  found  the  "  one  in  whose  hand  a  pendule 
will  traverse  spontaneously,"  the  slender  wands  were 
unsheathed  ;  and,  Mr.  Taylor  assuring  us  that  his  "  mind 
was  perfectly  passive,"  he  took  each  wand  in  its  turn, 
between  his  just-tested  thumb  and  fore-finger,  selected 


THE      EXPERIMENT     TRIED.  503 

the  degree,  "pointed  with  the  lesser  extremity  to  the 
basis"  (me),  and  pronounced  the  prescribed  formula.  The 
company  were  silent.  The  rain  poured  heavily.  Our 
thoughts  played  pendulum  between  the  white-haired 
od-imetrician,  hundreds  of  miles  away,  and  our  friend  the 
handsome  viaduct  through  whom,  at  that  moment,  the 
magic  influence  must  supernaturally  pass.  He  command 
ed  the  "  virtue  to  go  forth."  It  probably  did.  Such 
transfers  are  vague,  at  best.  What  Taylor  felt  at  his 
loss,  he  may  tell  us,  perhaps,  in  a  poem.  I  cannot  say 
that  I  had  any  very  definite  sensation  at  the  passing  of 
his  virtue  into  me. 

But  I  am  "  better."  Whether  it  is  od-ic  or  physic,  is, 
as  I  said  before,  the  embarrassing  point  for  my  acknow 
ledgments.  Either  way,  however,  I  am  not  the  less 
grateful  to  my  venerable  od-irnetric  friend,  whom  I  respect 
fully  and  tenderly  hope  I  shall  yet  see  at  Idlewild.  His 
wands  "  retain  their  efficacy  till  August  14,  1855  ;"  but 
my  welcome  to  him  will  last  longer — if  I  do. 

I  should  add,  by  the  way,  that  we  had  reason  to  won 
der,  that  afternoon,  whether  the  od-ic-opened  door  may 
not  let  in  other  unseen  spirits  besides  the  health-bringing 
ones,  or  whether  these  may  not  do  more  than  they  are 
bid.  Perhaps  it  may  be  as  well  to  caution  experimenters, 
that,  possibly, 

"More  water  runneth  by  the  mil] 
Than  wots  the  miller  of." 


504  LETTERS     FROM     IDLEWILD. 

Our  talk  naturally  led  to  experiments  at  table-moving; 
and  one  of  the  wooden-legged  quadrupeds — an  ormolu 
table,  hitherto  of  the  most  steady  habits,  standing  in  the 
centre  of  the  drawing-room,  began  to  prance  with  our 
Boston  friend's  laying  her  hands  lightly  upon  it,  and,  the 
next  moment  (though  she  is  a  large  and  majestic  lady), 
knocked  her  and  my  little  daughter  Lilian  prostrate  upon 
the  floor,  very  nearly  upset  the  Judge,  and  broke  the 
arm  of  a  lotus-crowned  statue  of  Melancholy  which  was 
on  a  stand  in  the  corner.  It  appeared  that  spirits  invok 
ed  to  heal  lungs,  may  also  assault  ladies  and  children, 
damage  furniture,  and  break  objects  of  art — mischievous 
"  angels  of  mercy,"  to  say  the  least.  Under  the  touch 
of  one  of  our  visitors  (an  invalid  lady  who  could  scarcely 
walk  across  the  room),  the  tables,  one  and  all,  that  even 
ing,  seemed  particularly  ungovernable.  Two  of  our  neigh 
bors  who  chanced  to  come  in  (our  venerable  friend  S.  and 
a  stout  working  farmer) — were  obliged  to  hop  out  of  the 
way,  in  the  niidst  of  their  unbelief,  to  make  room  for  the 
"  possessed"  mahogany,  pirouetting  under  the  mere  touch 
of  her  slender  fingers.  No  two  of  the  men  present  could, 
by  holding  on  with  main  strength,  stop  the  one-lady's- 
will-power  thus  exercised — the  table  rising  from  the  floor 
or  gliding  away,  as  if  gentlemen-wills  were  the  only 
obstacle.  The  faces  of  the  scared  servants,  who  were 
peeping  in  at  the  doors,  would  have  been  a  study  for 


TABLE-MOVING.  505 

FuselL  The  very  tables  they  had  bees-waxed  every 
day  1 

Of  course  we  "believed"  nothing — any  of  us.  But  this 
was  what  we  saw, 

I  may  as  well  add,  perhaps,  that,  to  my  own  touch, 
the  "possessed"  tables  were  wholly  insensible— as  they 
were  to  the  touch  of  all  the  gentlemen  present.  They 
danced  only  with  ladies. 

And  all  this  from  having  a  cough  to  cure.  We  must 
not  be  inconsolable,  dear  brother  invalids. 


22 


506  LETTERS     FROM     IDLEWILD. 


LETTER   LXIX. 

Acquaintance  across  the  Styx— Letter  from  our  Friend  the  Od-ometrician,  &e. 


30,  1854. 

I  AM  by  no  means  sure  that  our  invalid  society  has  not 
proved  attractive  to  unseen  spirits.  We  have  more  to 
wonder  at  than  we  used  to  haver  -and  nearer  neighbor 
hood,  perhaps,  may  have  brought  us  calls  from  "  Styx's 
other  shore " — as  might  be  easily  imagined  from  the 
results  of  our  conjuring  experiments  with  the  od-ic  wands, 
as  recorded  in  the  last  number  of  the  Home  Journal, 
We  are  assured,  by  the  poet,  that  " parting  spirits  see 
across,"  and  there  is  abundant  reason  to  believe  that 
parted  spirits  cannot  only  see  back,  but  make  their  eyes 
felt,  over  the  ferry  they  have  passed.  Looks,  from  the 
spirit-land,  rest  upon  us,  every  heart  must,  at  times,  have 
been  made  to  feel. 

But,  to  get  words  to  us — they  whose  lips  are  shadows 
and  whose  tongues  are  air  !  To  the  music  without 
words,  which  is  their  voice — the  voices  of  sweet  influences 
unsyllabled — we  need  an  opening  through  the  flesh-coatings 


A      SWEET      BELIEF.  50t 

of  the  ear.  If  spirits  speak  to  us,  therefore,  it  is  indi 
rectly — through  words  borrowed  from  others — by  tongues 
or  pens  which  they  "  possess "  to  speak  or  write  to  us. 
We  may  be  spoken  to  by  Mends,  with  words  of  counsel 
or  cheer,  when  the  apology  is  more  literal  than  they 
think — "  because  the  spirit  moves  them" — another  spirit 
than  their  own,  to  whose  promptings  they  have  thus  lent 
mortal  utterance. 

Oh,  to  bridge  that  gulf  with  our  "  belief  in  spirits  !" 
That  a  child  may  be  reached  from  heaven  by  its  mother's 
love  and  watchfulness  !  That  love  may  follow  thither — 
told  of  by  the  same  chain  of  electric  consciousness  which 
brings  their  love  to  us  !  Rather  than  retard  the  coming 
of  a  "  mesmeric  "  millennium  like  this,  let  us  be  thought 
visionary  and  credulous.  Life  has  arithmetic  enough. 

Of  one  of  our  invalid  company  who  has  died  since  we 
began  to  have  a  sick-room  corner  in  our  journal,  I  am 
made  to  feel  something  like  the  continued  memory. 
These  too  careless  gossippings  were  her  pleasure  in  her 
illness.  A  stranger  personally,  she  made  such  eager 
search  along  the  shore  of  the  Hudson,  in  her  last  journey 
up  the  river — wishing  to  see,  before  she  died,  the  Idle- 
wild  where  those  like  her  were  remembered — that  the 
broken  heart  of  him  who  mourns  for  her  turns  hither  with 
its  sadness.  His  letters,  far  away  as  he  is,  seem  to  bring 
me  with  hiA  to  her  presence.  They  are  strangely  touch- 


508  LETTERS      F « 0 M      IDLE  WILD. 

ing,  beautiful,  and  truthful.     The  pen  should  write  reve 
rently  that  sends  vibrations  to  such  strings. 

With  belief  turned  out  upon  God's  large  universe, 
however — exploring  for  discovery  rather  than  fencing  in 
from  conviction — speculation  tempts  far.  Let  us  try  our 
wings  once  more  with  my  friend  the  mysterious  and  vene 
rable  od-ometrician,  who  thus  discourses  to  me,  in  a 
second  letter,  dated  September  13,  1854  : — 


"  SIR  : — I  will  suppose  that  a  former  communication,  of  August 
14,  has  been  received.  I  cannot  doubt,  if  so,  that  you  have  some 
curiosity  to  know  more  about  the  od-force.;  and  I  propose — 
hoping  it  will  amuse  you — to  give  you  some  little  account  of  its 
effects  upon  vegetation.  Last  fall  I  threw  od-ics  into  the  only 
growing  crop,  turnips  ;  and  the  result  led  me  to  the  conclusion, 
that  vegetation  might  be  accelerated  fifty  per  cent,  in  the  course 
of  the  growing  season.  The  experiments  of  the  present  season 
have  more  than  confirmed  this  supposition.  Of  six  cotton  plants, 
side  by  side — circumstances  all  similar — the  three  that  were 
od-icised  the  1st  of  July,  weighed,  compared  with  the  noii-od- 
icised,  August  25,  in  the  proportion  of  147  to  100. 

"  I  have  made  another  very  interesting  discovery.  You  are 
aware  that  some  persons  cannot  bear  cotton  next  the  skin.  It 
produces  irritation,  general  uneasiness,  itching,  inflamed  eyes, 
aggravates  humors,  &c.  The  number  of  those  who  are  insi 
diously  affected,  is  probably  greater,  beyond  comparison,  than 
of  those  who  are  affected  palpably  and  unequivocally.  There  is 
reason  to  believe  that  it  lays  the  foundation  of  various  chronic 


A     POINT      OF      ETHICS.  509 

and  lingering  complaints;  and  I  believe  that  the  indirect  (or 
direct !)  moral  effect  is  more  to  be  deprecated  than  the  hygienic 
or  non-hygienic.  A  person  who  cannot  wear  cotton  socks  in 
warm  weather,  without  such  continual  itching,  that,  as  a  natural 
consequence,  the  ankles  and  feet  have  as  many  galled  spots  as  a 
first-rate  patriot  could  expect  at  the  close  of  an  electioneering 
campaign,  has  worn,  the  past  season,  cotton  socks  that  had  been 
permanently  de-od-icised,  and  od-icised  with  the  od-ic  of  linen, 
of  the  normal  intensity,  without  the  least  inconvenience.  The 
cotton  seemed  entirely  "healed," — to  be  effectually  linenized. 

"  Will  you  permit  me,  in  this  connection,  to  suggest  a  point  of 
ethics  ?  If  you  have  had  the  curiosity  to  look  over  one  or  two 
pamphlets  that  I  have  sent  you,  on  the  prophetical  Scriptures 
(perhaps  sent  to  the  Home  Journal),  you  may  recollect  that  I 
have  advanced  the  theory  that  England  is  the  nation  to  which  the 
kingdom  of  God  was  to  be  given  (Matt.  xxi.  43), — the  millennial 
kingdom.  Now,  should  these  discoveries,  at  first,  be  generally 
disseminated,  or  limited,  for  a  time,  to  the  millennial  kingdom  ? 
I  have  called  the  above  a  point  of  ethics,  but  it  is  ethico-political — 
the  ethical  considerations  at  the  basis.  I  do  not  wish  you  to  give 
me  an  ex-cathedra  opinion  on  the  subject,  nor  indeed  any  opinion, 
unless  it  should  come  in  your  way  to  give  an  intelligible  hint  in 
the  Home  Journal.  For  many  years  I  have  been  almost  a 
recluse  5  during  which  time  you  have  travelled  much,  observed 
much,  and  reflected  much. 

"  I  am  getting  on  as  I  can  with  a  pamphlet  on  the  subject  of 
the  oc?-force,  which  I  hope  to  have  in  readiness  for  distribution  by 
the  middle  of  November.  If  you  wish,  I  will  send  you  a  bundle 
of  them  for  distribution  among  your  friends. 

'  I  take  the  liberty  to  send  you  two  more  wands.    They  are  set 


510        LETTERS   FROM   IDLE  WILD. 

as  to  degrees,  etc.,  like  the  others.  No.  1  throws  a  compound  od-io 
of  bugle-weed  and  sugar  of  lead,  designed  to  prevent  hemoptysis. 
Dose,  thrown  into  the  lungs,  twenty-five  degrees,  though  I  should 
recommend  a  smaller  dose  at  first,  and  great  caution.  No.  2 
throws  a  compound  od-ic  of  French  brandy  (the  real  article,  such 
as  used  to  be  in  the  market  forty  years  ago),  quassia,  and  the 
sulphate  of  zinc,  designed  as  an  appetizer  and  tonic — dose, 
forty-five  degrees,  to  be  thrown  into  the  stomach.  According 
to  my  theory,  the  consumption  makes  little  or  no  progress,  so 
long  as  the  stomach  can  be  kept  in  tone.  Hence  the  singular 
benefit  of  exercise  on  horseback. 

"  Since  commencing  this  letter,  I  have  visited  ^plantation  which 
I  have  at  some  little  distance.  There  are  cotton  plants  (which 
have  grown,  from  the  seed,  under  od'-ometric  influences)  that  are 
three  and  one-half  feet  high,  and  much  the  same  in  diameter.  One 
of  them  is  supposed  to  have  some  fifty  buds,  blossoms,  and  balls 
upon  it.  Some  of  the  balls  are,  and  will  be,  I  think,  matured 
sufficiently  to  produce  acclimated  seed  for  another  year.  I  have 
learned  much  this  season,  and  should  judge  from  critical  observa 
tion,  that  the  plant  might  be  matured,  another  year,  six  "weeks 
earlier.  That  it  can,  by  selecting  the  earliest  acclimated  seed,  and 
by  continuing  ot?-ometric  influences,  be  acclimated  in  a  few  years, 
is,  I  think,  little  doubtful.  There  is  also  a  magnificent  growth  of 
river  rice,  though  grown  on  upland.  The  product  of  a  single 
seed,  in  some  instances,  is  a  dense  cluster  of  stems,  as  large  as  I 
can  clasp  with  both  hands— the  broad  rice-grass  above,  reaching 
in  some  instances,  to  the  height  of  three  and  one-half  feet.  But, 
there  is  not  a  single  seed-bearing  stalk.  The  plants  grew  on  a 
side  hill,  exposed  to  the  full  glare  of  the  sun  all  day,  but  suffered 
less  from  drought  than  most  other  vegetation.  I  see  no  reason 


CULTIVATION      BY      ODICS.  511 

why  the  upland  or  dry  rice  may  not  be  grown  as  well  in  New 
England  as  in  Alabama  ;  and  the  river  rice  in  water,  as  well  as  in 
South  Carolina.  At  any  rate,  on  the  uplands,  it  would  be  exceed 
ingly  productive  for  feed.  I  held  a  wisp  to  Mulley  (cow),  and  she 
almost  dislocated  my  arm  by  tearing  off  a  mouthful.  It  is  very 
tenacious,  in  consequence  of  having  little  moisture ;  and,  for 
the  same  reason,  the  yield  would  be  great.  I  should  judge  it 
would  not  lose  more  than  half  as  much  weight,  by  drying,  as 
English  grass. 

"  Should  you  happen  to  wish  for  other  wands,  for  any  specific 
purpose,  please  to  write,  and  I  will  endeavor  to  prepare  them. — 
i  am,  sir,  with  great  respect,  your  obedient  servant, 


*'  P.  S. — Some  rice  that  I  have  dried  by  the  stove,  and  just  weigh 
ed,  lost  in  weight  but  about  sixty  per  cent" 

The  question  in  ethics  proposed  by  this  venerable  stu 
dent  of  mysteries,  is  too  broad  and  difficult  to  be  answer 
ed — short,  at  least,  of  his  own  scope  and  study  in  a 
pamphlet ;  but  I  remember  a  passage  which  has  a  bear 
ing  upon  it,  and  which  I  ran  a  pencil  against,  years  ago, 
in  a  book  of  very  high  authority — viz.  :  "  That  the  world 
is  not  fit  to  le  trusted  with  secrets,  even  concerning  move 
ments  for  its  own  good,  is  a  principle  acted  upon  ly  wise 
men,  as  well  as  ly  mysterious  Providence."  Whether  our 
friend  himself  is  not  on  the  scene-shifter's  side  of  the  cur 
tain  not  ready  to  be  raised,  is  a  nice  question  also,  I  am 


512  LETTERS      FROM      IDLEWJLD. 

inclined  to  think  ;  though  the  class  who  form  the  readers 
of  the  Home  Journal  are,  perhaps,  the  best  pick  that 
could  be  made  for  the  exceptions  to  see  a  "  star  in  the 

East." 


THE     GENIUS     LOCI.  513 


LETTER  LXX. 

Certainty  of  a  Genius  Loci— His  Susceptibility  of  Pique— Curious  Exercise  of 
it— The  Drip-Rock  Parlor— Check  to  a  falling  Leaf— Farewell. 

October  7,  1854. 

SEPARATE  a  rural  spot  from  the  rest  of  the  world, 
either  by  poetry  or  property  — only  putting  around  it  the 
fairy  ring  of  a  thought-haunt,  where  your  love  and  sad 
ness  are  at  home — and  it  is  curious  how  you  are  made 
gradually  conscious  that  there  is  a  genius  loci,  a  spirit, 
inhabiting  just  what  you  have  fenced  in  with  thoughts 
or  rails.  The  almost  inarticulate  welcome  that  you  feel, 
as  you  enter  the  gate,  or  re-cross  the  limit  after  absence 
— the  sigh  of  desertedness  as  you  go  from  it  into  the 
world — show  that  it  is  a  loving  spirit,  though  (like  an 
angel  with  a  prudent  mamma)  it  waited  to  see  some 
definite  habitation  before  acknowledging  the  preference. 
But  we  mistake,  I  think,  if  we  invest  it  with  any  quali 
ties  that  are  inconvenient — any  mystery  or  majesty,  that 
is  to  say,  which  would  inspire  awe,  or  make  us  any  way 
uncomfortable.  It  is  a  familiar  spirit.  Its  demonstra 
tions  are  very  human — playful  and  capricious,  when  not 


514  LETTERS      FROM      IDLEWILD. 

called  upon  to  be  sympathetic  and  tender.  Our  table- 
movings  last  week,  I  more  than  half  suspect  were  mere 
bits  of  fun  by  the  Spirit  of  Idlewild. 

But,  that  the  "spirit  of  a  spot"  is  susceptible  of  pique, 
was  a  discovery  of  mine  a  day  or  two  ago — more  inte 
resting  as  being  another  step  in  the  mortal-ward  progress 
which  the  spirit  world  is  making  (or  which  is  thought  to 
be  shown  in  the  spirit  world's  behaving  as  men  and 
women  would  very  likely  do  in  the  same  circumstances, 
or  out  of  the  reach  of  their  ordinary  amusements  and 
occupations),  and  the  new  knowledge  is  therefore  perhaps 
worthy  to  be  recorded.  The  future  historian  of  our  age, 
with  his  increased  responsibilities,  may  thank  us — his 
business  being  with  the  events  of  things  visible  and  a 
little  way  beyond. 

The  most  precious  natural  treasure  of  Idlewild,  as  well 
as  its  most  beautiful  feature,  had  been  left  undescribed. 
At  the  farthest  depth  between  precipices,  hidden  and 
romantically  wild,  lies  a  sanctuary  of  rock  and  water, 
which  for  various  whims  of  reasons,  I  have  never  chanced 
to  portray,  in  these  my  descriptive  pencillings.  It  was 
partly  because  I  wished  for  more  leisure  to  sketch  the 
spot  well,  partly  because  its  coyness  of  privacy  was  a 
charm  which  the  directing  of  attention  to  it  mght  destroy 
— the  common  rambler  through  the  glen  walking  over 
its  rock-roof,  and  leaving  it  unvisited  and  unsuspected. 


THE      DRIP-ROCK.  515 

And  so  the  Spirit  of  Idlewild  felt  a  sigh — her  drip-rock 
parlor,  with  its  overhanging  eaves  and  cool  floor,  its 
lofty  shading  of  trees  and  its  deep-down  basin,  left  all 
unpictured. 

But,  if  J  would  not  do  it,  somebody  else  would.  Oh, 
the  Spirit  of  the  Spot  did  not  depend  altogether  on  me ! 
If  it  could  not  bring  another  writer  actually  here  to  de 
scribe  it,  there  was  a  first-rate  one  who  could  be  made  to 
see  it  in  a  dream  !  And  he  would  tell  his  dream  !  What 
was  my  amazement  to  take  up  "  The  Independent,"  last 
Saturday,  and,  in  the  midst  of  Beecher's  charming  letter 
from  his  new  home  in  the  country,  read  the  following 
abrupt  digression — a  sudden  and  most  singular  breaking 
away  from  his  actual  description  of  what  was  around  him, 
to  portray  most  graphically  and  exactly,  this  drip-rock 
parlor  at  Idlewild  : — 

"  I  have  always  wished  that  there  might  be  a  rock-spring  upon 
my  place.  I  could  wish  to  have,  back  of  the  house  some  two 
hundred  yards,  a  steep  and  tree-covered  height  of  broad,  cold, 
and  mossy  rocks— rocks  that  have  seen  trouble,  and  been  upheaved 
by  deep  inward  forces,  and  are  lying  in  any  way  of  noble  confu 
sion,  full  of  clefts,  and  dark  and  mysterious  passages,  without 
echoes  in  them,  upholstered  with  pendulous  vines  and  soft  with 
deep  moss.  Upon  all  this  silent  tumult  of  wild  and  shattered 
rocks,  struck  through  with  stillness  and  rest,  the  thick  forest 
should  shed  down  a  perpetual  twilight.  The  only  glow  that  ever 
chased  away  its  solemn  shadows  should  be  the  red  rose-light  of 


516  LETTERS      FROM      IDLE  WILD. 

sunsets,  shot  beneath  the  branches  and  through  the  trunks,  light 
ing  up  the  gray  rocks  with  strange  golden  glory.  What  light  is 
so  impressive  as  this  lasf  light  of  the  day  streaming  into  a  forest 
so  dark  that  even  insects  leave  it  silent  ?  Yes,  another  light  is  as 
strange — that  rose-light  of  the  afternoon,  which  shines  down  a  hill 
side  of  vivid  green  grass,  taking  its  hues,  and  strikes  through  the 
transparent  leaves  into  the  forest  below,  and  spreads  itself  along 
the  ground  in  a  tender  color  for  which  AVC  have  no  name,  as  if 
green  was  just  melting  into  rose  color,  and  orange  color  was  just 
seizing  them  both. 

"  But  to  return  to  the  spring.  In  such  a  rock  forest  as  I  have 
spoken  of,  far  up  in  one  of  its  silent  aisles,  a  spring  should  burst 
forth,  making  haste  from  the  seams  of  the  rock,  as  if  just  touched 
with  the  prophet's  rod — cold,  clear,  copious  and  musical  from  its 
Tbirth.  All  the  way  to  the  outer  edge  of  the  forest  it  should  find, 
its  own  channels,  and  live  its  own  life,  unshaped  by  human  hands. 
But  before  the  sun  touched  it,  we  should  have  a  rock  reservoir, 
into  which  it  should  gather  its  congregation  of  drops  now  about 
to  go  forth  into  useful  life.  Thence  it  should  have  liberty  of  will 
to  flow  where  it  could  not  help  flowing,  through  strong  pipes  into 
every  chamber  of  the  house.  And  it  should  be  to  every  room 
copious  as  the  atmosphere,  so  that  one  might  bathe  in  molten  ice 
every  hour  of  the  day  if  he  chose,  without  fear  of  exhausting  the 
fountain,  and  in  the  joy  of  abundance  beyond  all  squandering.* 
Just  such  a  spring  I  have  not,  and  cannot  have.'-1 

*  Making  it  a  point  to  be  literally  correct  in  these  sketches,  I  should  here 
observe,  that,  though  the  spring  flows  "  where  it  cannot  help  flowing,"  and  so 
"  to  every  room  in  the  house,"  there  is  a  circumstance  which  Mr.  Beecher 
omits  to  mention,  viz.— that  this  path  to  the  house,  being  one  hundred  and 


SKETCH      FROM      NATURE.  51t 

And  here  he  returns  to  his  own  Tempe — quite  uncon 
scious,  probably,  that,  with  his  eloquent  digression,  he 
has  been  gratifying  the  jealous  pique  of  the  Spirit  of  mine 
— literary  describing  the  beauty-spot  I  had  neglected  ! 

I  have  made  what  atonement  was  possible  to-  the 
offended  glen-fairy — showing  her  tall  drip-curtain  and  its 
romantic  surroundings  to  Wandesford  the  artist,  who 
chanced  to  be  staying  with  us,  and  who  immediately 
picked  out  the  point  of  view  for  his  pencil  of  magic.  He 
will  make  such  a  picture  of  that  hiding-place  of  beauty  as 
will  stir  pens  more  poetical  than  mine. 

I  called  Wandesford's  attention  to  a  pretty  little  mock 
of  invalid  enjoyment  of  life,  as  he  was  sketching  in 
another  part  of  the  glen,  that  morning.  Cut  off  from 
conversation  for  awhile,  by  his  wanting  my  broad- 
brimmed  hat  in  the  background,  to  give  effect  to  his 
drawing,  I  was  in  the  bliss  of  a  summer  morning's  mere 
existence — gazing  into  the  depths  of  the  glen  without  a 
thought  that  had  more  grammar  in  it  than  the  pulse  in 
my  wrist — when  an  object  of  unusual  brilliancy  and 
activity  caught  my  eye.  The  rock  I  was  "  doing  figure  " 
upon  was  a  seat  half  way  down  a  hanging  path  in  the 

fifty  feet  up  a  precipitous  hill,  it  goes  that  trifle  out  of  its  way  by  the  persuasion 
of  a  hydraulic  ram — its  own  weight  being  made  the  propulsive  force  (the  same 
as  in  the  down-hill  part  of  its  journey),  according  to  the  principle  of  that  most 
beautiful  of  mechanic  inrentions. 


518        LETTERS   FROM   IDLEWILD. 

side  of  a  cliff,  the  broken  light  flickering  through  the 
gigantic  trees  overhead,  and  the  furious  cascades  which 
were  performing  their  accustomed  sublimities  far  below, 
keeping  a  constant  tremulousness  in  the  air. 

My  eye  had  once  or  twice  rested  upon  what  I  took  to 
be  a  hovering  butterfly,  poised  midway  over  the  abyss  ; 
but,  with  its  humming-bird  activity  of  wings,  and  its 
remaining  unchangeably  in  one  spot,  my  attention 
became  gradually  fixed  upon  it.  It  was  a  faded  leaf, 
held  by  a  spider's  thread,  but  so  poised  that  it  revolved 
in  the  currents  of  air  with  the  glitter  and  show  of  an 
insect.  "Wandesford  left  his  pencils  to  come  and  look  at 
it.  The  cobweb  was  invisible,  and  he  was  puzzled  to  see 
how  it  was  upheld,  or  why,  with  its  wonderful  liveliness 
of  revolution,  it  did  not  wear  itself  loose  from  a  thread 
so  delicate.  But  there  it  fluttered — checked  half  way  to 
the  swift  current  below,  and  lingering  in  the  summer  air, 
more  moved  with  every  passing  breath  than  in  its  vigor 
of  June.  And  there  it  lingers  still.  I  have  seen  it 
since,  morning  after  morning,  in  my  ramble — waiting, 
probably,  for  the  deferred  winds  of  a  gentle  Autumn  to 
loose  it  when  the  skies  grow  ruder. 

There  is  one  fair  lingerer,  far  West,  who  has  written  to 
number  herself  in  the  troop  for  whom  we  gossip,  and  she 
will  find  in  this  leaf  her  cheerful  likeness.  May  her 
thread — and  that  of  all  to  whom  this  invalid  gossip  has 


THE    AUTHOR'S    CONGE.  519 

been  the  wile-time  of  a  summer  prolonged  beyond  hope- 
part  before  the  storm  would  be  too  wintry.     The  falling 
leaf  should  not  linger  till  ice  would  make  its  grave. 
***** 

And  here  the  Letters  from  Idlewild  come  to  an  end. 
The  author  has  thus  long — not  too  long,  he  trusts — made 
the  readers  of  the  Home  Journal  guests  at  his  home.  He 
brought  them  here  at  first,  because,  confined  to  its  seclu 
sion  himself,  he  felt  that  he  might  claim  an  invalid's  privi 
lege  to  be  kindly  visited.  The  friendly  interest  and  will 
ingness  to  listen  have  been  shown  in  many  ways,  and  have 
been,  it  need  scarce  be  said,  most  deeply  gratifying.  The 
readers  of  the  Journal  have  rapidly  increased  and  are  now, 
many  indeed  ;  and  if  the  author's  friendship  in  the  world 
may  be  thus  measured,  he  can  well  afford  to  care  little  for 
its  fame.  He  assures  these  kind  thousands  that  the 
memory  of  their  sympathetic  listenings  will  be  tenderly 
cherished  in  his  heart,  though  the  gate  of  Idlewild  is  here 
shut  upon  the  pen  that  is  their  servant. 


THE     END. 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

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•  •  .  —  __ 

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